


i think you're a joke (but i don't find you very funny)

by ayjayjay



Series: you don’t deserve yourself [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Character Study, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inappropriate Erections, M/M, No Romance, Other, Teen Angst, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Unhealthy Relationships, i guess??, in the most awkward and uncomfortable teenage way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:13:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ayjayjay/pseuds/ayjayjay
Summary: He’s never been gone permanently, never even really left South Park with the intention of being gone. He always comes back. He’s always going to be stuck here, tied to his parents and to his house at the edge of town and to the cold slush on the ground.“If you think you couldn’t live without something, without someone, I guess, you should make sure they know how you feel. If you think you couldn’t live with yourself leaving something ambiguous, you should clear it up. If it eats away at you tonight when you’re thinking about this, think about why. Not everyone gets a million chances. Just go from there.” Kenny climbs out of the driver’s seat and pats the top of Stan’s car. “I’ll see you later, dude."
Relationships: Eric Cartman/Kenny McCormick, sort of - Relationship
Series: you don’t deserve yourself [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933627
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	i think you're a joke (but i don't find you very funny)

**Author's Note:**

> this is a repost of a fic previously titled "shoot him again ('cause i can see his soul dancing)". originally, i had grand ideas about making it a long multi-chapter fic encapsulating kenny and cartman's relationship in a way that had a satisfying beginning, middle, and end, but i really struggled to find anything satisfying about it. also, when i wrote it, i was feeling all kinds of good feelings about life and relationships and the future, and now i am not. i think it stands alone a lot better now, even if it doesn't come together entirely; that was my intention this time around, just an unsatisfying little snippet of life.
> 
> title is based on the song "pedestrian at best" by courtney barnett. at one point i had another fic uploaded with another title pulled from this song, and maybe i'll repost that once i rework it a bit :o
> 
> as always please enjoy. special thanks to zuotian on ao3, who beta-ed the original fic and helped me through my thought process on a lot of the early-middle stuff.

On Sunday night he’s leaning back against the swing under his ass, fingers twisted around the chains to hold himself upright. His scuffed shoes pick little ditches into the wood chips below as he kicks off and lets gravity do the rest, swaying him back and forth, closer and farther away from the figures of Kyle and Stan in the dim light of the streetlamp. They’re sitting together on a plastic jumbo slide not ten feet away, passing a brown paper bag between them and taking swigs from the 4Loko inside. (Kenny had laughed like a madman, doubled over in front of his shot-out fallen-over mailbox and wheezing, when Stan sheepishly produced the artificial watermelon flavored beverages from his backpack. It was his turn to buy the alcohol for their weekly late-night drinking in the park, and of  _ course _ Shelley had not been conned easily. She bought him the worst flavor, and she’d even kept the change. He kept laughing even when Stan threatened to take back Kenny’s can. He couldn’t help it.)

Kyle is looking very nervous, always looking nervous, though he’s trying to hide it—trying to be  _ cool _ in the interim before the alcohol sends his shoulders finally down below his ears. He’s always like this, somehow wound up to the brink every single week without fail, and Kenny thinks maybe Kyle needs their Sunday ritual more than he does sometimes. Kyle’s eyes dart around every time Stan haphazardly passes the bag across their laps, as though his mom’s going to pop out of the bushes at any second, or as if every passing car is a cop on a sting.

Kenny’s fairly certain Park County Police have better to do than to arrest three teenagers for passing a 4Loko in the park at night, but then again, Kyle wants to be a lawyer or a doctor or something else predictably successful, so he’s probably just stressing about his pristine criminal record. He still accepts the drink, though, when it’s passed to him. 

Kenny, who has a record as long as his forearm, takes a swig of his own can, and for a moment he and Kyle share the same grimace of disgust, though Kyle shivers and makes an audible noise where Kenny just wrinkles his nose and swallows. He’s tasted worse. 

Kyle then passes it back to Stan, who has been leaned back against the slope of the jumbo slide for about an hour, probably more out of Stan-brand melancholy than the effects of the drink, whatever that means at the moment. He leans up to take swigs, but he’s either completely oblivious to the mental gymnastics Kyle is running due to the power of the Loko or he’s on the same page as Kenny about the police that barely patrol the half unpaved streets in South Park, because he doesn’t break the silence brushing over the three of them. Nothing does, except for the swing, creaking in protest as Kenny propels himself forward with his legs flapping in the breeze. 

Kyle fidgets while Stan has the can in his grip. Actually, if Kenny is more accurate, Kyle has been fidgeting  _ every time _ the can is in Stan’s grip. It’s almost too small to notice, but Kenny does, because he’s good at picking up on subtle things like that when it comes to Kyle and Stan, when it comes to pretty much everyone in his tiny sphere of influence. There’s a small ridge in the middle of the jumbo slide separating Kyle and Stan; it’s presumably there to mark an invisible divide for the crowds of children so they don’t endlessly fall into one another, but it’s barely an inch high and made of the same crappy plastic as the rest of the slide, so Kenny can’t imagine it does much more than create an obstacle for teenagers looking to brush thighs. Every so often, Kyle slides a little closer towards Stan, and Kenny’s eyes crinkle. Kyle is feeling bold. 

Eventually, with or without Stan noticing, their thighs are touching just barely, with Kyle’s legs awkwardly straddling that weird little ridge on the jumbo slide. Kyle takes the can back. Stan, as though suddenly sober to the world around him, looks down at their legs as Kyle tips his head back to swallow from the emptying can. He moves away slightly, as if acting on instinct, then carefully thinks better of it and presses their legs together once again. Kyle makes a sour face, reeling from his mouthful of swill, but after he swallows, Kenny can almost feel him preening from happiness. 

The can passes back to Stan, and so on, and so forth, the two of them playing a subtle game of gay chess as Kenny slowly drains his own can of 4Loko. Kyle’s hand skims Stan’s as they pass their can, and their ears both blossom red. They look at their laps, and Kenny looks at them both.

Kyle leans back to join Stan’s depressed stargazing party, and Kenny drains the last dregs of backwash in his can before crushing it under his feet as he pushes off the ground again. The noise is a satisfying break to the silence, but the air is getting kind of thick with the awkward ball of homoromantic shit going on between his two best friends, so Kenny takes the opportunity to milk his third-wheel status and light a cigarette while he thinks Kyle isn’t watching. 

“Ken- _ ny! _ ” Kyle hisses, whispering because of fucking course he is. He shoots up like a rocket from his place lost in Stan’s midnight faggery as soon as Kenny exhales a fat cloud of smoke, flicking a bit of ash into the wood chips at his feet. “Fucking seriously?”

Kenny laughs, swinging a little higher. The air is cool on his face, cheeks warmed by the sugary thrum of the 4Loko in his very cells. He could die happy on Sundays like this, even playing chaperone like this, and he closes his eyes as momentum propels him forward, back, forward again. “Seriously what, dude?” It feels good to be outside, feels good to exist, feels as bright as the ember on his cigarette burning gold and red like charcoal. “It’s a cigarette. ‘snot like it’s weed.”

Kyle looks at Stan, exasperated, and when Stan shrugs with as much gusto as a man full of a half-can of the shittiest alcoholic beverage on Earth can muster, Kyle throws his hands up dramatically. “ _ It’s not like it’s weed, _ ” Kyle says, mocking his tone. “Fuck me running! Am I the only one concerned about the sanctity of a children’s playground? Or the sanctity of mine and Stan’s untainted criminal record?” 

That’s one thing that Kenny loves about Kyle—he’s neurotic, he’s a spoiled brat, and he likes to be mean. He’s not as bad as Tweek when it comes to existential paranoia and (no pun intended) tweaking the fuck out, but he rivals him sometimes with the sheer levels of stressed energy he radiates. It’s cute to be berated by a little yapping dog of a guy, and makes Kenny grin from ear to ear every time. 

“Ouch, Kyle,” he laughs, leaning back until he’s almost horizontal with his swing, watching the fences and the wood chips and the basketball court behind him blur into two distorted stretches, up and down. “Your tone seems pointed right now! Now I see where your priorities lie, and I couldn’t agree more: fuck the poor, fuck the disadvantaged, and fuck the spirit of teenage rebellion. Pharaoh, let my people go, but only if you feel like it won’t inconvenience—” 

He exhales another cloud as he talks, then immediately flies back into it, coughing and squinting to keep it from his eyes. He flails, then falls off the swing and into the ravines his sneakers have dug out. Stan is laughing, mostly at Kenny’s fall, but Kyle still huffs and crosses his arms, turning slightly away and breaking their contact. Stan stops laughing immediately, looking like a puppy dog meeting a flighty bird, all wide eyes and tense gentleness.

“Kyle…” he starts, putting a few fingers on Kyle’s forearm. He’s doing that thing he always does where he steps in between Kyle and someone else before the fight can even happen, or before Kyle gets going on a drunken tangent about whatever the hell he’s mad about in the moment, even though they both know Kenny isn’t the type to rile Kyle up too far. “It’s just a cigarette. Kenny’s right. We’d be in more trouble if he had a joint or something, it’s ok.”

Kyle seems to consider this and calm down a little, looking to Stan with a pleased little expression on his face. 

Kenny can’t resist dunking on him, though, not when it’s back to their perfect little bromoerotic mood, of course not. He holds out his cigarette pack to Kyle and Stan’s position from the ground. “I got some of those too, if you want ‘em,” he offers. 

He doesn’t actually have any weed on him at the moment; he’s still waiting to re-up, but before he can say this Kyle throws the nearly-empty can of 4Loko at Kenny, sending an arc of his own watermelon spit and sludge into Kenny’s face before the can beans off his nose and onto the wood chips with a scattered  _ whump _ . 

They all sit in a long, long,  _ long  _ stunned silence: Stan presumably because he didn’t think Kyle would have the balls to throw anything at anyone, Kyle because he’s worrying (unfounded a worry as it may be) about Kenny going home pissed off at him and smelling like radioactive candy-flavored beer and blind in one eye or something, and Kenny because he’s taking in the deer-in-headlights looks on both of them. And then the air clears, because Kenny bursts into laughter, dragging Kyle and Stan along with him. 

The ritual is over, and the night, from there, wraps up. He staggers home early on Monday morning, before the sun turns the snow on the sidewalk to muddy slush, climbing through his window and flopping down onto his mattress, limbs spread wide as the world spins pleasantly around him. Then, he sleeps, and he never dreams of dying on early Monday mornings, bones heavy and mind saturated with alcohol.

When he wakes up the next morning, at two or three in the afternoon, Kenny scrounges up the quarters from his change jar from the week before and he takes his sister Karen to the laundromat to wash their clothes. They climb into Kenny’s beat up truck (that Stan had basically given him, and that Kenny still kind of resents for that reason) and they blast whatever CD Karen chooses at the highest volume they can stand. Today’s choice is Riddle Box; they take turns rapping along, cracking each other up with every trashy song that plays through the speakers. 

“Tell me who killed seventeen people and later ate their dead bodies?” Kenny asks, wind whipping through their hair as they whip up the backroads at obscene speeds to get to the shitty strip mall the next town over.

Karen replies, “Jeffrey Dahmer!” 

“No,” Kenny says, slapping her arm gently as they pull into the parking lot, “the correct answer would be your mother!”

At the laundromat, it’s quiet and peaceful, with only the sloshing of little self-contained oceans and the white noise of the air conditioning to contend with. He and Karen say next to nothing to one another, both dressed in their pajamas as they fold their good clothes side by side. Kenny feels recharged by the time they pile the stacked laundry between them in the truck and ride home in the slowly setting sun, Shaggy 2 Dope’s crusty lyricism cutting through the air.

The late fall afternoon cools the bed of the truck down, but they cruise down familiar streets with the windows rolled down anyway, their heads all but lolling out, the breeze whipping all the laundromat-warmed heat from Kenny’s face. After he drops her off at their place again, lugging the laundry inside through the snow with her, he peels from the vacant gravel driveway to the only 24-hour McDonald’s in Park County, Colorado, and he picks up his paycheck. It’s not as much as he’d like, just shy of $500, but it’ll keep their water and power on for the month.

Once it’s cashed, the temptation to go out and buy a whole pantry of groceries is strong, almost unbearable, but his parents are due back from one of their classic McCormick family binges any day now, and if Kenny knows his father, he knows a full kitchen stocked from his own pocket is worth little more than a slap to the face for disrespect. Instead, he buys a bucket of KFC and a salad from a vegetarian place a few blocks up and returns home to feed his sister, resolved to wait until the next time they leave so they can hoard the non-perishable fruit of his loins in Karen’s room, the meat in the cooler buried under the snow outside Kenny’s window.

He sleeps well that night knowing she’s fed, and he barely stirs when his mother and father come stumbling in at an ungodly hour of the night, knocking over anything in their paths. As per usual, he dreams about all the times he’s been nearly-dead on the side of the road, in pain and barely conscious and bleeding out on the white snow and the grey asphalt, watching the headlights of cars flicker as they pass, not stopping for roadkill. The wolf that sometimes visits the roads in his dreams passes up eating his insides tonight, choosing to lick the tears and snot and detritus from his face instead. He watches its gnashing teeth and pink tongue and thinks it could be worse. 

On Tuesday Kenny wakes up extra late, the light from the half-setting sun already beaming in through his window from the afternoon, right into his eyes. He wakes up late because on Tuesdays he works the overnight shift at the only 24-hour McDonalds in Park County, and it’s stupid to wake up before the afternoon when he’ll be up until six the next morning anyway.

He knows it’ll be a hard one right off the bat because he wakes up to the sound of his parents throwing things at one another in the living room. If he looks down and to his left, which he does, he can see Karen curled up beside him on his exposed mattress, clinging to his t-shirt and trembling under the thick blanket Kyle had given her last Christmas, still in her school clothes. She’s not crying, but the heaving in her shoulders warns that she  _ has _ cried at some point. He pulls her up out of her hiding spot under the covers and wraps his arms around her, shushing her gently and playing with her soft brown hair until her breathing evens out properly. 

She’s not a baby anymore by any means, but thirteen year olds need to be coddled sometimes, even if they don’t say it. Kenny sometimes wishes he had been coddled by Kevin when he was her age, but Kevin was the experiment, the fuckup, and he’d been in and out of juvie so much before Kenny even hit ten that their relationship was all but nonexistent. He’d skipped town at seventeen, moving into a shitty apartment in Denver with his barely-of-age girlfriend, and last Kenny heard he was slinging dope to pay for diapers and baby formula. Not that Kenny cared, really, not that he ever really felt any sort of connection to Kevin, who had taken out his childish confusion and rage on everything and everyone even when Kenny was barely out of diapers himself, but thinking about it made him remember why he had to be good, why he had to work hard. It didn’t matter if he was running on the conveyor belt and going nowhere; if he ran hard enough, Karen could jump off and start walking whenever she wanted.

The sun descends further, withering his time away, but Kenny doesn’t watch the clock at times like this, when Karen is sniffling and the sounds of his childhood echo through the thin walls and under the drafty crack under his door. Eventually the grown children stop their tantrums, and the front door slaps against the worn out doorframe. For a while, he can hear his mother crying in their now empty house for a while, eventually that stops too. Only then does he check his phone—6:20PM—and peel himself away from the dozing Karen, stuffing his uniform and his wallet and his phone charger and a clean pair of underwear into his bag. He crawls out the window of his room and retreats to his truck, avoiding the confrontation with his mother, during which that holier-than-thou sneer of his upper lip won’t settle down enough for even a ‘bye’. 

There’s no chance he’s getting out of the driveway without stirring Karen, but he tries anyway, starting the roaring engine of the truck and peeling from the driveway as quickly as he can before starting the drive into town proper, on the hunt for a hot shower to soothe his nerves, lighting a Marlboro as he goes. 

He tries Stan’s house first, but Stan’s mother answers the door and gives him a long lookover, from his beat up old Wranglers (now high waters because he’s shot up past his father’s measly 5’9”) to Stan’s old System of a Down t-shirt (now worn and peeling after years of McCormick love), before grimacing sadly and breaking the news that Stan won’t be back from football practice for another few hours. It’s not like he blames her for sending him away; she thinks he’s a bad influence on Stan, drinking and smoking and partying like wild boys on the weekends. Kenny kind of agrees, but he doesn’t have the heart to tell her Stan continues the party without Kenny’s help, running with a different crowd ever since he moved from JV to varsity.

Kyle’s house is a no-go, too, since the mini-van he shares with his father isn’t in its usual parking spot. He doesn’t even bother going up to the front door; he knows unless Kyle answers the door, he’s liable to stand in the cold for nothing but a scolding. Mrs. Broflovski had never quite forgiven Kenny in the same ways Kyle always managed to, and she always seemed to be looking down at him, no matter how much Kenny towered over her. 

Butters is out of the question—his father has thrown Kenny out of their second-story window too many times to even bother asking. 

Craig hates him for whatever mundane reason he’s conjured up at the moment, and therefore so does his boyfriend. Clyde pisses him off. Token probably  _ would _ let Kenny use the shower, but Kenny would rather die than be a beggar on his plush doorstep. He’s not going to ask  _ Wendy _ for help, either, because she asks way too many questions, always playing white-knight, and so… and so… and so...

So he backs out of Stan’s driveway and heads to the home of Eric Cartman, who is leaning out his window when Kenny pulls in, throwing rocks at all cars but Kenny’s that pass. He’s really too old to still be doing shit like that, but then again, that’s what he admires about Cartman. He’s always just…. the same. He stays in place, like an anchor Kenny can grab and cling to when he gets thrown in too deep, cinderblock of responsibility tied to his ankles.

When they all moved up to junior high school, they had all promised they’d stick together, brave the waves as a unit, but Kyle had joined the basketball team along with every other extra curricular activity known to man and Stan had obviously signed up to play football, leaving Kenny to mingle with Cartman for his remaining years of schooling. In retrospect, the ocean they’d imagined facing together was the tide pool. The high school they all attended was the real sea, a melting pot for all the podunk towns in the area, and Kenny didn’t have any ill will towards Stan and Kyle for finding their own. 

Cartman and Kenny were always the ones with no social standing, no outstanding interests or hobbies to attach themselves to any particular groups, and so they stuck together like glue, each the other’s only real friend. When Kenny dropped out of school at the beginning of their junior year in favor of working, Cartman had been the only one who was still associated with him. It had taken a while to talk to Kyle and Stan again, what with their pitying glances and faux-optimistic commentary on his life choices, but Cartman… Cartman had shrugged, called in an inevitability of life, then bought an eighth from him an hour later behind Tweak Bros Coffee.

“Hey!” Cartman cries from the window, watching Kenny’s truck pull into his driveway and breaking its owner out of his wandering thoughts. “You’re blocking my view of the road with that eyesore, you broke asshole!” 

Kenny rolls his eyes and grins, sliding out of the vehicle and onto Cartman’s driveway. Dickhead. He squints up into the sun setting over the rooftops, waving with one hand as he does. “Hey, dickhead. Can I, like, use your bathroom?”

Cartman makes a noise of discontent and disappears from his window. It’s usually hit or miss with needy, pathetic questions like that; Kenny thinks that sometimes the reality of his home life makes Cartman pretty uncomfortable and concerned, even if he doesn’t have the vocabulary to express it, and if he reminds Cartman of it when he’s in too sour a mood, Kenny’s likely to get turned away entirely and left to his own devices for two weeks until Cartman forgets why he was angry. He’s starting to think it’s one of those times, but then as he’s still staring up at the window, the lock on the door clicks, and it swings open. 

Cartman says nothing, but when Kenny hesitates, he rolls his eyes and ushers Kenny inside like he doesn’t want anyone to see. It’s like a business transaction, or a drug deal. Kenny putters around the hallway outside Cartman’s bathroom, looking like an idiot, until Cartman returns with a towel for Kenny’s outstretched, expectant hands. Kenny hates Cartman’s house, hates his weird home dynamic and his weird iron fist over his mother, but he likes the shower, and his bed. He used to come around a lot more, but now neither of them have time for sleepovers. Kenny uses Cartman’s expensive shampoo to wash the sweat from his stringy hair, humming something from the radio and pondering over the fancy soaps and too-hot water until he emerges, dripping and scrubbed-pink and barefoot. Cartman’s house has soft carpet, always has.

He flops down in front of Cartman’s window when he gets dressed, fishing around his bag for a cigarette. He lights it, hanging out into the yard, and only then does Cartman look away from the laptop he’s no doubt been steadily typing away at since Kenny came upstairs to shower. 

“What the fuck, Kenny,” Cartman says, just like he does every time Kenny smokes in his room. “You have no fucking manners, you know that?” 

Still, he leaves the desk, rolling across the floor in his chair until he’s beside Kenny with his hand outstretched expectantly. Kenny deposits his pack into Cartman’s hand, and as Cartman lights a cigarette alongside Kenny, the pair of them watch a bird in Cartman’s backyard build its nest in peaceful silence. Cartman doesn’t usually smoke  _ anything _ , but he likes to do it with Kenny for whatever reason. Kenny doesn’t mind unless it’s his last cigarette; Cartman doesn’t do much more than hold the smoke in his mouth, not really inhaling it, but it’s cute, so Kenny can’t tell him. It’s probably the last little bit of childlike innocence that Cartman has these days, irons in so many different fires he can’t keep track of them himself.

Kenny leans his cheek on his palm watches Cartman’s profile as he fake-smokes out the window, from his soft well-kept haircut to his chubby cheeks, down his wide but buttony nose. 

He has always had mixed feelings about Cartman, a weird parasitic friendship that fluctuates in and out of romantic territory on his end depending on several different factors. He doesn’t really think it’d ever work out even if something  _ does _ happen, which it won’t, because Cartman’s dick is too busy alternating between getting hard over Wendy and getting hard over Kyle, but just when Kenny thinks he’s gotten over it, Cartman always goes and stirs up the feelings in Kenny’s chest all over again. 

Ah well. It doesn’t really matter—Kenny doesn’t think about it too hard, or tries not to, until suddenly he’s right there up close, watching Cartman smoke cigarettes wrong in his childhood bedroom, smelling like his bougie soap. When they were younger, he had a harder time keeping it under wraps; it's the nostalgia, he thinks, or maybe it’s the godawful but kind of sexy cologne Cartman wears these days. A polaroid strip of Cartman and Kenny as kids at Casa Bonita is even pinned to the wall behind his head, for god’s sake, nestled between a poster of Marilyn Manson (who Cartman insists is not gay to listen to, even though he is) and an old dart board Stan bought him for his eleventh birthday.

Kenny’s content to stay like this forever, cool air blowing from across town, the sun sinking behind the houses and dusting its last bits of warmth on his face, Cartman watching with rapt attention beside him as he blows lazy smoke rings into the sky. 

“So… are you coming to prom?” Cartman asks after a long while. It kind of bursts out of him in the way things typically do when Cartman has been mulling something over for a while, flush across his fat cheeks. “Or are you still pretending your high school friends don’t exist?”

Kenny rolls his tongue around his mouth a bit, tasting cigarettes and Mountain Dew, and he sighs, lets the smoke out in one big plume before he flicks the cigarette butt into Cartman’s mom’s soggy flowerbeds. There Cartman goes, stirring it up again. Kenny’s stomach churns excitedly, despite his better judgement.

“Hm,” Kenny says. “I haven’t thought about it, really.” He hasn’t. Kenny hasn’t set foot in the vicinity of the school beyond picking up a faxed copy of his birth certificate for his own measly recordkeeping, and though he’d gladly come back any day and pick up where he left off, it’s just not something he can imagine anymore. Homecoming, house parties, graduation… it all seems so foreign, so far off and unrealistic. 

He can’t deny he misses it all, waiting at the bus stop every morning, or passing his friends in the halls, or sneaking outside to smoke a cigarette or a bowl with Craig and the goth kids behind the dumpsters. He misses the exhilaration of skipping class to go throw rocks at dogs with Cartman, and crawling into his bed after a party, wrapping his arms around Cartman from behind and kneading Cartman’s pudgy stomach until he forces Kenny to sleep on the floor. He misses going on a joyride to Denver just to get a specific flavor of slurpee with Stan. He even misses sleeping at Kyle’s after a study session, both of them too tired to do more than lie on their backs on Kyle’s crappy twin bed. 

“Will you go if someone asks you?”

“Are you asking me?” Kenny asks, kind of stupidly.

“Fuck no!” Cartman laughs, sending Kenny’s heart into a moment of moist depression before it bounces back; this  _ is _ Cartman, after all. “Nah, I’m going to try to take Wendy this year, if she finally dumps her faggy boyfriend so he can take  _ his _ faggy boyfriend.” 

Kenny rolls his eyes. “I guess... I would if someone asked? I mean, I don’t think anyone’s gonna, though. The only people who think of me anymore are you guys and, like...” They both know it goes without saying that Butters will not be taking Kenny to prom. 

“You never know,” Cartman says with a devilish smile, nudging Kenny with his elbow. “Maybe you can both wear matching dresses.”

Kenny throws Clyde Frog at him. Cartman tries to throw a pencil at Kenny’s eye, but it goes flying past his head and sticks in the wall. Kenny pounces, and they wrestle for a while, grappling over the stupid stuffed frog that Kenny’s watched Cartman cling to from a makeshift bed on his bedroom floor for years, envious and annoyed that he wasn’t small and green and frog-shaped. 

Eventually they break apart, and Cartman sits on Kenny’s hips and laughs triumphantly, holding Clyde Frog in his arms with mirth in his eyes. Both of them are breathing hard, hair and clothes mussed, staring at one another in contented, exhausted silence, twin smiles. Kenny’s alarm blares from where his phone is hooked up to the charger, though, and the moment dies before Kenny can make a fool of himself. Cartman seems to remember himself, flushing as he climbs up off Kenny’s lap. Kenny dusts himself off, tucking in the parts of his shirt that have come untucked in the wrestling match. He wouldn’t admit that his ears are red too if he was under oath, but he scratches the back of his neck awkwardly and clears his throat.

“Duty calls,” he says, and he lets Cartman walk him downstairs before climbing into his truck.

“You should really think about prom,” Cartman says instead of goodbye. “I’m sure people would like to see you there.” 

“I doubt it,” Kenny replies, cigarette hanging out his mouth.

On the way out of the neighborhood, Kenny passes by Butters’ house, and he stupidly looks up, expecting to see Butters leaning out the window, too, though his room’s window lets out into the backyard. It hurts a little anyway, not to see him, as though seeing Butters hanging out the window and knitting. He drives for an hour, watching South Park slip away in his rearview mirror, and by then he’s beginning to feel hungry, so he gets his free meal early and picks at his burger and fries until it’s time to work. 

Nine hours later, on a foggy Wednesday morning, he flops into the seat of his truck with another cigarette between his teeth, legs hanging out the open cab as he stretches his spine. He likes work, sure, because it’s honest labor and he gets a hearty enough paycheck from it every two weeks, but it leaves him braindead and exhausted and itching to fight drunk people. A chilly breeze rolls through the truck bed and sends the ash crumbling off, into his hair, and he drives into his sleepy hometown with grey and silver stuck in his fringe. He’s exhausted, but he won’t wind down for another few hours at least, so he drives to Stark’s Pond before school starts, taking the chance of meeting Craig for a bowl before he crashes into his bed. 

He’s there, thankfully, thick smoke and cacophonous noise steadily billowing out of the open door of his creeper van as he unrolls a yoga mat across the little ‘beach’ at the townside edge, greasy hair exposed to the blue light of the morning in the absence of his ugly hat.

Kenny rolls his eyes; Craig started doing shit like yoga and meditating a few years back because he thought it was helpful to Tweek, but he’d actually ended up enjoying it more than his boyfriend. That was fine; Kenny didn’t care about that gentrified hippie crap, but it was harmless enough. Only when Stan had gotten into it too had Kenny found it truly annoying and unavoidable; now Craig and Stan said things like “namaste” to each other when Stan picked Kenny up from Craig’s parties, and Tweek still shook like one of those little plastic sets of chattering teeth. Kenny picks up a rock from the slushy ground and throws it at the van’s bumper, already dented from countless fender benders, and Craig flips him off as he crosses the beach to meet him.

“Hey, dude,” Kenny says, taking the gamble that Craig has decided not to hate him today. They clasp their hands together, shoulders bumping in a gesture of peace, or at the very least ceasefire. “How’s your inner peace?”

Craig shrugs, gesturing to the van’s open door, where Tweek is tapping away loudly at a keyboard propped up on the dashboard, head bent solemnly as he tests different melodies. He’s been making music lately, if anyone would call it that, and Kenny has been recruited on several occasions for backup vocals and experimental noise assistance. He’s also wearing Craig’s missing hat, hair sticking out of it at crazy angles. Kenny snorts; he’s already accepted he’ll never understand how their relationship works, and he also doesn’t mind it. Craig and Tweek individually are weird, born and bred and content in South Park, the antithesis of Kenny’s former group of friends, but together…. Kenny can’t put his finger on it, but it works somehow. 

“Just started my routine, actually, if you wanna join,” Craig says. “We were talking, and then Tweek got some inspiration and wanted to be alone, so… there’s still room for you.”

“Umm, I’ll pass. You mind if I smoke though?” he asks, already opening the back doors of the van to another wall of weed stink and noise from the front seat. He already knows the answer, since Kenny is almost everyone’s plug.

Tweek jumps when Kenny opens the back doors, head whipping around to identify the intruder, but otherwise stays plucking away at his little keyboard, trying to decipher one of many napkins that litter the van’s floor, onto which lyrics have been hastily scribbled. He’s used to Kenny coming by in the mornings by now, though, and he lifts up a hand to say hello and then says nothing else at all. Kenny lies down on the worn out and smelly mattress Craig keeps in the back of his creeper van and stretches again. He feels it to his toes, clenching his whole body in a moment of pure bliss. 

Kenny smokes a bowl and a half of Craig’s weed sprawled out on the dingy mattress, then two stale menthol cigarettes he had left for himself a month ago for when he was inevitably broke again, watching Craig meditate on his yoga mat in silence and listens to Tweek tap away on squeaky keys. He’s not too broke for cigarettes, but they kind of taste like toothpaste, and he feels less gross after smoking them.

After a while, Craig stands up, shrugging on his discarded jacket and putting his shoes back on. He motions for Kenny to follow, and they both take a seat on the van’s bumper. Craig scratches the back of his sweaty neck. Kenny pokes at a cavity in his molar with his tongue. Time passes slowly for a while, a drug-fueled haze washing over them both as the sun begins to shine across the pond’s surface, and then Kenny has to break the silence.

“Are you going to take Tweek to prom?” he asks. It’s an innocuous question, but Craig raises his eyebrow all the same. Innocuous, but abnormal. Kenny doesn’t usually bother to ask about high school shit, and Craig doesn’t talk about it.

Craig picks at his thumb nail. “Obviously.”

Kenny sighs, cracking his knuckles just to have something to do. “Okay, well, I hope you both have no fun, then, you sarcastic fuck.”

Craig lets out a puff of air that might be frustration or laughter; Kenny can’t tell. “I don’t know why you suddenly care so much about school shit, that’s all.”

“Excuse me if me asking you one question about prom is suddenly caring  _ too  _ much,” Kenny says, shoving Craig’s knee with his shoe. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be involved in your life.”

“No need to get defensive,” Craig shrugs. “You don’t actually care about prom, do you?”

The question takes Kenny off guard, and he lights up another cigarette as he thinks. Does he care? Not really, but unless he gets a graduation invitation from Kyle or Stan, senior prom and its subsequent after-parties are the last time he’ll see most of his old friends, whether they’re drifting away due to college or work or just a chance to cut and run from the small town. It might be melancholic, sure, to watch them all have their last hurrah while Kenny himself prepares for an indefinite number of years right where he is, but it might also be nice. Like old times. Like Kenny never left at all. Thinking about it now, Kenny feels a little queasy. What were  _ old times _ for everyone else now? He wasn’t involved in their drama, wasn’t a part of their conversations. He was  _ Kenny? Is that you?  _ in the McDonald’s drive-thru line sometimes, but that was about it. Would he even be able to take the time off, a few days to party and recover before returning to the real world, the underbelly, the depressing monotony of the working class?

Maybe it was just because Cartman asked. He shakes his head. “I’d rather just watch everyone else at prom,” Kenny decides after a pause. He shrugs one shoulder; maybe it would be alright to go, observing the way everyone’s lives had changed as a guest, just stepping in for a few nights to see how the story ended. “I was asking because I wanted to know if I could, like, be your guest if nobody asked me.” He flicks the ash off his cigarette absently. “Just… Tweek can already go, and I know you guys wouldn’t care because you’d just be together regardless.”

Craig snorts again and pats Kenny’s shoulder. “Sure, buddy. I’ll take you as my plus one to prom, but I’m not dancing with you.” 

“Fuck you,” Kenny laughs. “But… deal.”

He doesn’t mention Cartman, nor does he mention that he kind of maybe wanted Cartman to take him. Craig would laugh at him, and then question his wellness, talking about Kenny’s “self-destructive benders” or whatever, like he even fucking knows what Kenny gets up to anymore. Kenny bites his tongue instead, and he flicks his cigarette into the pond, resolving to maybe— _ maybe _ —talk to Kyle about it.

Not long after that, Craig and Tweek head off to catch the morning bell, and Kenny heads home to an empty house to crash into his bed, comatose until the sun is far ahead, moving into the later part of the afternoon. 

He wakes up with a start, stretching his arms over his head and fishing in the sheets for his phone, which is buzzing like crazy. He cracks one eye open and peeks at the screen—incoming call from Stan—but it goes black as soon as he reads the words. He’s got five missed calls already, both from Stan and Kyle, and he shoots out of bed as soon as he realizes why, phone clutched to his ear as he hastily pulls his jeans on. They’d made plans a few weeks ago, hadn’t they? He really needed to get a calendar, or a louder ringer. 

“Hello?” Stan’s voice is robotic over the phone, but he sounds in good spirits, acting like he doesn’t have caller ID and can’t tell who is calling.

“Hey man, what’s up?” Kenny yawns, tugging on two pairs of socks from the floor, as well as his sneakers. It’s looking melty outside, but the sky through his window screams snow, so better safe than sorry when it comes to insulation.

From the receiver, Kenny can hear a muffled conversation, like Stan has the phone pressed to his chest while several people talk, and then Stan speaks again. “Umm, so… me and Kyle and Wendy have been waiting on you, so if you still want to go see the movie with us...”

Kenny never comments on how Stan says Kyle’s name first, or how Kyle is probably in the front seat of Stan’s little hybrid car instead of Wendy. Instead, he sighs down the receiver and runs a hand through his hair. It’s not that a remake of Cabin Fever doesn’t sound good, because it does, and the original was one of his favorites, but… “I don’t really have any money right now, so I—“

There’s a clatter over the phone, and suddenly Kyle’s tinny voice is in his ear. He holds the phone away from his ear on instinct.

“Kenneth McCormick, I swear to  _ everything holy _ , I don’t want to hear it. A ten dollar movie ticket is nothing to me,” he says, obviously already in a mood. “The only showing left is at 6:30, but we were thinking we could go up to Denver and eat if we get there early.” Kenny opens his mouth to reply, but Kyle beats him to it. “My treat. I know it’s your favorite movie, dude, and the remake is gonna be such shit.  _ Please _ just come. For me?” 

Kenny flops back against his mattress, one shoe still untied as he sinks into his defeat. “Yeah,” he says finally. “Okay, I’m game. Am I coming to Stan’s or are you coming to me?”

“We’re already outside your house,” Kyle says.

Wendy says something Kenny can’t understand through the phone, but from outside he can hear a horn honking, and he shakes his head and laughs. “Okay, I’ll be there in a second.” He rummages around in his drawer for the jar he keeps his weed paraphernalia in and stuffs it into his bag with a sagely nod to himself, and then slides out his window, crunching through the snow to Stan’s silver hybrid.

He gives them his best lopsided grin as he slides into the backseat, surprised to see Kyle beside him. When he looks up at the passenger’s seat, though, Wendy and Stan are pointedly not talking or looking at each other, but her hand is on his jacket.  _ Ah,  _ Kenny thinks, looking between the two, then over at Kyle, who widens his eyes just a little in response.  _ They’re fighting again.  _ The silence in the car is deafening; Kenny suspects that they’d probably been fighting the second they got in the car, and that Kyle had tried to mediate in his own bullheaded way, and that had made everything worse. Kenny wasn’t sure how Kyle didn’t know Wendy resented him, or how he didn’t know she thought Stan was in love with him, or how he didn’t know Stan was actually in love with him in his weird Stan way. He didn’t understand much about any of them in that respect.

“So,” Kenny says, propping his feet up on the center console, making Wendy grimace. “You got an aux cord in this little transformer, Stan?” 

Wendy answers for him. “Yes, he does, but I’m in the passenger’s seat, so I get to have it.” 

“Are you going to play something good then?”

She scoffs, pulling out her phone and jamming the aux cord into the headphone jack. “Ugh, obviously!”

Kyle, in the style of his mother, raises his eyebrows silently as if to say  _ ‘someone has a temper!’ _ but says nothing. Kenny can’t help but snort. 

It’s a shame everyone is in a bad mood today—Kenny generally gets along pretty well with Wendy, and likes spending time with her and Stan when they’re having a good patch.

When Kenny dropped out, Wendy was one of few who showed him real human understanding, and she’d skipped school to invite him to an art museum with her. She took his hand right there in the museum without a care of who saw, watching Kenny’s face as he stared at The Pointe de La Heve at Low Tide, tears welling up in his eyes for some ungodly reason. Neither of them spoke. Even once they were walking back to her car, rain almost sideways and pelting their faces, Wendy didn’t let go of his hand. It was a little weird, especially because she’s Stan’s girlfriend, but her hand was small and warm and comforting, like Karen’s, and she rubbed little circles on the back of his palm, and she’d kept her eyes forward while Kenny sniffled and watched the street lights reflect off her lacquered nails. They didn’t keep up with each other, running in completely separate circles, but it had stuck with him anyway.

Back in the present, crisp acoustic music comes floating through the speakers, and Kenny yawns pleasantly, leaning his head against the window to feel the bumpy old South Park roads give way to the highway, watching the  _ Now Leaving South Park—Don’t Stay Gone Too Long!  _ sign disappear in the distance. He’s content to sit in relative silence for the car ride, listening to Wendy and Stan chatter in the front seat, off in his own daydreams, but his phone buzzes in the pocket of his parka, drawing his attention away from the trees sweeping past as they drove on.

> **Broflovski:** Thanks for coming, Kenny.

He grins lopsidedly over at Kyle. Kyle looks relieved, shoulders lowering an nth from the tension in the car as Kenny reaches over and bumps him in the shoulder. 

> **Do u have ur headphones?**

Instead of replying, Kyle produces them from his pocket, passing them to Kenny without fuss. Kenny scrolls through Kyle’s Spotify playlists on his phone to find his own, tucked away and hidden under a ton of folders with weird names, and starts to jam. After a moment, he offers the other earpiece to Kyle, who accepts so as not to hear the hippie crap coming through the car speakers.

Kenny leans over and puts his head on Kyle’s shoulder. An hour isn’t that long of a ride, but Kenny takes advantage of the feeling of Kyle’s matronly hand in his hair and the dull hum of Stan’s shitty hybrid car as they travel, lulling himself to sleep. Eventually he’s shaken awake, though, feeling a bit less morbidly exhausted, and finds everyone waiting for him yet again. He climbs out of the backseat sheepishly, tucking his bag over his shoulder. 

Stan informs him that they got in late due to traffic, and missed the only matinee showing, and since Kyle didn’t want to pay double the price for a remake of a scary movie they’d all already seen, they’ll be wandering Denver together in search of something to do. 

This is fine with Kenny, of course. He’d rather spend the day window shopping in Denver anyway. Everything’s way too overpriced. 

Wendy and Stan trudge ahead, talking in hushed tones. Kenny and Kyle stroll casually behind, Kenny reaching over to take Kyle’s slender hand. Kyle turns to him, eyes wide as if to ask what the hell he’s doing, and Kenny laughs. 

“It’s not like holding hands is gonna make you lose your virginity, dude! I just don’t wanna lose you on the sidewalk to some creep.”

Kyle rolls his eyes, but allows Kenny’s hand to remain. “Don’t be fucking weird. Do you want to get some food?” He seems distracted, almost agitated, changing the topic randomly as he watches Stan from behind. They stop at a crosswalk, Kyle pressing the button over and over impatiently as cars whiz past. “I’m kind of hungry, but Wendy and Stan look, um… busy.” 

It was true—Stan and Wendy had gotten to the crosswalk before the light changed, and were now carrying on down the street, arms gesturing wildly at each other as they paid no attention to the growing gap in their party. They didn’t even seem to stop and look at the buildings they might like to visit, thrift stores and head shops and even a used bookstore for Wendy to peruse. It must be a serious fight. 

Kenny grimaces, but his stomach is growling like crazy.

“Hey!” Kenny calls, yelling over the traffic passing between them. “Stan! Wendy!” He raises the hand locked with Kyle’s in the air and waved it frantically, jostling Kyle around a bit in the process. 

Finally, Wendy turns, and then Stan after, seeming to notice the gap they’d left between their little group. From across the street Kenny can’t really tell what Stan is looking at or thinking about before he and Wendy turn, but his jaw looks tight and his hands stuffed into his pockets are most likely fists. Kenny wonders if it was Wendy’s doing or his own, fingers still clutching onto Kyle’s in the middle of Denver. As their arms fall, Kyle adjusts his askew glasses and brushes nonexistent dirt from his shirt.

“We’re hungry,” Kyle calls, “Or at least, I am, and Kenny’s being dragged along. Are you two done having your little… talk?”

Wendy looks at Stan, who looks between her and the other side of the street. Kenny can tell even this is a test. “I’m… I’m pretty hungry too,” Stan calls over, which could very well be the wrong answer based on how Wendy’s face screws up just a little. Obviously she wants some privacy, but Stan is always too oblivious for her. Kenny yet again wonders briefly why she bothers, but they both jog across the street when the light changes, and by the time their little quartet slips into a booth at a sandwich shop nearby it’s all but forgotten.

It goes about as well as it always goes when Wendy and Kyle are together. The table is pin-drop silent for a while as they settle in, finally broken as Kyle immediately starts complaining about the prices on the menu. This predictable outburst makes Kenny and Stan laugh but annoys Wendy, and the two of them start their passive aggressive dance. If Cartman was here, he’d make a joke about Kyle’s penny-pinching ways to break the tension and get Wendy on Kyle’s side by way of social justice, but he’s not here, and so Kenny just feels guilty for making him pay double.

“Everywhere is expensive in Denver, Kyle,” Wendy says, sipping at her water. “It’s not exactly Park County.”

Kyle rolls his eyes over his Pepsi and snorts. “Oh, thanks, Wendy. Next time I’m here, I’ll be sure to look for you at the visitor’s center since you’re such an expert.”

Stan looks at Kenny with wide eyes. Kenny shrugs and orders when the waitress comes around. Stan tries to mediate their argument, but Kenny doesn’t really give enough of a shit to keep up with any of it, too busy focusing on the food Kyle had paid for. He’s totally zoned out, scarfing down his delicious (and not unimpressive) cheesesteak when Kyle finally stands up abruptly, chair screeching on the floor. Stan is paused mid-bite, and he looks over at Kenny, who raises his eyebrows in response.

_ Here it comes, _ Kenny thinks.  _ She must have really pissed him off. _

“Ugh!” He cries, fingers clenched into a fist around his fork. “I’m not putting up with this shit every time you want to hang out! Stanley, can’t you get a reign on your goddamn  _ woman _ ?”

Wendy looks scandalized, and Stan looks terrified. There’s a crowd of people watching now, and Kyle’s face is bright red. Wendy’s is, too, both of them burning red-hot with some anger Kenny wasn’t really privy to.

“Kyle…” Stan says, and he starts to stand up, too, but he hesitates when Wendy puts a hand on his shoulder. 

Kyle throws his fork onto the table and storms out and down the street, leaving Kenny with a half-chewed bite in his mouth and a sick feeling in his stomach. So he does what he knows best—he bursts out laughing, because he’s nervous, and because Kyle had called Wendy his equivalent of  _ bitch _ , and it was really all too much at once. His gaze flicks between Wendy, looking down at her lap with a blank expression, and Stan, tugging his hat off and tousling his own hair with a soothing hand on her back and a stormy expression. 

Thankfully, the look Stan gives him kills the inappropriate laughter in his throat, and Kenny stands up. 

“Um, get some to-go boxes for me and Kyle, ok?” He says, voice weak. “We, ah. You guys just. Um. Eat, yeah? I’ll—we’ll meet you at the car. Let’s all just… uh, take some time to ourselves, and then just go home.” He leaves Stan there to deal with the fallout from Wendy, tossing a twenty from his wallet onto the table with a sigh and going to clean up the other half of the mess. Kyle totally owes him.

He finds Kyle on the stoop of a deli a few blocks down, head in his hands. He jumps when Kenny sits down beside him, but once he hears the rustling of Kenny’s cigarette pack, he settles down and accepts a light from him. He feels like an enabler, but Kyle steals cigarettes from his mother, anyway, and Kyle will probably buy him a carton after he finds out Kenny paid for lunch.

“So, um…” Kenny isn’t sure what to say. Kyle does this sometimes, flips on people when he’s thinking hard about things, and especially on Wendy because he’s usually thinking hard about Stan. They’ve never explicitly talked about the matter, but Kenny’s pretty sure Kyle knows he knows about the Stan thing. It’s just a universal law, like gravity and that female celebrities stop being relevant after they’re in their 40s. “Dude, what the fuck?”

Kyle blows smoke in a scoff. ”I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, wry smile on his face. He leans his head on Kenny’s shoulder and sighs, though.

“What was all that, man? I know she’s a bitch, but goddamn.”

Kyle shakes his head a little, grinding his temple into Kenny’s bony shoulder. “I—I don’t even know. It’s like, okay, I get that you have a girlfriend and she’s not even that bad of a person, and I feel like if things weren’t how they are with them we could actually be friends. I know I crossed a fucking line, but—” 

Kyle flicks the cherry off of his cigarette aggressively. Kenny hands him back the lighter. “But it—that’s how it  _ always _ is with them, every time we hang out. It pisses me off! At school, at home, at study sessions, everywhere. There’s always something distracting them from the fun, distracting  _ Stanley _ from enjoying himself, and… and I don’t know! It’s each other, can’t they see how bad they are for each other? I’m sick of being invited to fucking mediate a day-long passive aggressive Stan and Wendy argument, dude! She’s a bitch, and he should just dump her if he’s so goddamn unhappy!”

“Have you ever asked him if he’s unhappy? Or what he wants?” Kenny doesn’t know anything about Stan and Wendy’s relationship, if he’s honest. He never cared much for that kind of conversation with Stan, and it’s not like Stan and him ever did much soul-searching while they hiked in the mountains.

Kyle raises his head and shakes it. “So many times,” he says between puffs. “I keep telling him he should just worry about what’s important  _ now _ , like scholarships and football and shit that he actually cares about doing for his life, fun things, but he just tells me I wouldn’t understand how he’s feeling.” He sighs. “I thought I didn’t understand him this year, but I think I’m realizing I’ve never once understood him.”

Kenny watches the smoke from their cigarettes float upward and mix into the white-grey of the clouds above Denver, chewing on his cheek as he thinks. Back in elementary school there was nothing and nobody Stan loved more than Kyle. When had that changed? He’d always been dating Wendy, so it couldn’t be her, right? He doesn’t know what to say to Kyle, not about Stan, “I know how you feel, man.”

Kyle says nothing for a long time, and finally manages, “oh?”

“Yeah. It’s like every time you start to think you figure him out, he throws a curveball, right? Like, you know how he is, and how he handles stuff, and you know he doesn’t like you like that, but every so often he says or does some shit that just takes the whole process of getting over your, like, self-indulgent ownership of knowing him better than anyone back to square one. And then you’re like, dude, I don’t even know why I waste my time with you, because you’re not even on the same page about all of this.”

“Are we still talking about me and Stan?”

Kenny coughs. “Did that sound like you and Stan?”

“Um,” Kyle dodges the question. “What were  _ you _ talking about?”

Kenny stares at him, saying nothing. Kyle says nothing too.

“There’s only one person who fits that description, dude. Power of deduction—don’t make me say it.” He’s embarrassed all of a sudden, worried what Kyle will say. He scratches his scalp nervously.

To his credit, Kyle doesn’t laugh, but he looks at Kenny like he’s insane. “ _ Cartman, _ ” he says, incredulously. “ _ The _ Eric Cartman, the same guy who calls you a poor piece of shit and a garbage picker and who bullied a girl he liked so hard she got fat and mean and turned into him?”

“Yes, dude, that Cartman.” He says it without thinking, replaying the conversation he’d had in his mind over and over as color prickles at his cheeks. “That’s—that’s so dumb, I know, but. After everything, after… like...” He stamps his cigarette butt under the heel of his sneaker before stuffing it in his pocket. “Fuck, man, I don’t know. I think it’s a you-and-Stan situation.”

“I do  _ not _ have a situation with Stan,” Kyle says, unconvincingly. “There is no ‘situation’. We’re just best friends.”

“Who have sleepovers in their senior year, and still sleep in the same bed, and still go to the bathroom together when one of you has to piss?”

Kyle’s cheeks flare up. “Well, at least it isn’t  _ Cartman! _ ” Kenny can’t help but laugh—touché. “I don’t know what you could possibly see in that walking talking garbage machine. He’s so full of shit, Ken. Do you guys even hang out like that? What did that fat fuck ever do for you?”

“Lots of things,” Kenny says, but he can’t really think of anything he’s willing to share. Their many sleepovers, about playing elves and wizards as kids, about playing superhero in secret after everyone else stopped… It’s exactly like he said himself—a self-indulgent ownership over the parts of Cartman only he gets to see. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“And thank god for that,” Kyle says.

They walk, just enjoying the crisp cool air. Kenny misses Kyle, misses Stan, even misses Wendy. Even if today is a bust, he’s happy he got to see them all in one place. 

“I don’t know what to say about that,” Kyle says.

“I don’t know what to say either,” Kenny admits. “I’ve been thinking about this for like seven years, Kyle, and I’ve never told anyone.”

“That long? I can’t believe you.” Kyle gives him an incredulous look, then pauses. “Actually, I can. You’re so into the idea of happiness being an unobtainable thing! Twisting the knife deeper and involving yourself with Cartman is a totally believable thing for you to want to do.”

“I’m cool with it most of the time, like, being his punching-bag and his comic relief and his sidekick, being his  _ friend _ , but sometimes he says some shit that gets my heart all fucked up, man.” Kenny sighs. “And then I’m just… I’m sittin’ there for weeks just thinking ‘man, I wanna be your girlfriend’. It’s so stupid.”

Kyle doesn’t answer for a few blocks, and Kenny isn’t sure what else to say, so they walk in silence. Kenny starts to lead them back to the car, at which point Kyle says, “so… girlfriend?”

Kenny clears his throat. “Slip of the tongue. Girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever.” His stomach rolls. “Aha. Ha.” Denver isn’t the place he wants to talk to Kyle about that type of shit, especially not as they close in on Wendy and Stan, probably still upset and a little worried that Kyle and Kenny have been gone so long. Besides, Kyle’s smart, and he can probably figure it out without being told. 

Kenny used to be a beautiful elven princess every day after school as a kid. He used to wear hand-me-down skirts to school when he was out of laundry money. He hasn’t had a haircut in like a year and a half, ugly mullet worn in a variety of genderweird styles.  Kyle gives him another look— _ we’ll be discussing this later _ —and Kenny grimaces. There’s nothing to discuss, really. Kenny’s just the same as he always was, always is. He does his own thing.

As they approach the spot in the parking garage Stan had chosen, Kenny is surprised that Stan and Wendy aren’t waiting for them. He hops up on the back of Stan’s car and dangles his feet over the side, helping Kyle join him. 

“You wanna smoke?” Kenny grins.

“We just smoked, you addict.”

“I mean the other stuff, dude.”

Kyle flusters. “You—you brought  _ that  _ with you? In Stanley’s car, all the way to Denver?”

“I’ve taken it all the way to Salt Lake and back before, you square. Do you want to or not?” 

He’s already rummaging around in his bag for a joint he’d pre-rolled for this sort of occasion, and when he pulls it out Kyle gawks at it. He’s not much of a drinker or a smoker, but Kyle definitely prefers the latter over the former. He’s so high-strung already that weed just puts him at a normal level. Kenny lights the twisted end and inhales all the gross papery bits before passing it to Kyle, who hesitates, looking between Kenny and the joint, and then takes a long hit. 

Kenny grins. “Hell yeah. Welcome to the wild side.”

“I don’t approve of this, just so you know.” They pass it back and forth. 

Kenny shrugs. “You know you’re gonna have to apologize to Wendy once they get to the car, right?”

Kyle sighs, letting the smoke billow up and around his head. “Yeah, I know. I feel like shit, for—for fucking ruining this. I guess I know what you mean by feeling like you have ownership.” He pauses, pulling his knees to his chest. “I don’t know what it’s like to live without Stan, though. He’s my best friend.”

From across the parking garage floor, a pair of voices echo and catch both his and Kyle’s attention. Kenny scrambles off the back of the car and scrapes the joint across the floor, tucking it back into the sealed container he brought it in, just in case. He’s not in the mood to get harrassed by a fucking meter maid. He spits on the concrete floor and leans against the side of the car casually.

Thankfully it’s Wendy and Stan, standing farther apart than usual, but still chatting. They both pause when they see Kenny and Kyle, and Wendy wrinkles her nose at the smell, but soon the whole group is back together, and Kyle is picking at his fingernails.

“Kyle,” Stan says again, in that placating way he does. It seems like he’s always saying Kyle’s name.

“No, Stanley,” Kyle says. He hops off the car and steps closer to Wendy, and he holds out a hand to her. She takes it after a moment of confusion, and Kyle takes a deep breath. “I—Wendy, I’m sorry I embarrassed you today, and I’m sorry I have spent this last year trying to fight you tooth and nail for no reason.” He bites his lip. “I’ve been really insensitive to you, and a huge ass. You’re Stan’s girlfriend, and if he wants you in his life I’m not going to try and fight that.”

Wendy seems shocked, honestly, but it makes her smile. She takes Kyle’s hand clasped in hers and puts her other hand over his, and her eyes crinkle a little. “Kyle, I really appreciate it. College stuff is stressful. Life is stressful. But even if this  _ was _ a date, which it wasn’t, I’m not Stan’s girlfriend, and I’m not mad at you.” She leans closer, and Kenny can see the shock spread across Kyle’s face as he processes. His ears are red, and he takes his hand from Wendy’s and starts frantically cleaning his glasses. 

_ Wow, _ Kenny mouths over their heads.  _ When did she dump you?  _

Stan shrugs with a half-smile, and Kenny drops it. 

They all pile into the car again with less tension in the air. Kenny offers to drive, eager to get behind the wheel of Stan’s little electric car, and to his surprise, Stan agrees. He expects Kyle to join him in the front, but he and Stan silently pile into the back, leaving Wendy with the aux cord again. She plays some better stuff this time, classics that they all used to scream at the top of their lungs when they came on the radio. 

Kenny whoops when they pass the sign reading  _ Now Entering Park County—Chilliest County In Colorado!  _ and sings along with Wendy. Stan’s leaning against the window in the back, chin in his hands, scrolling on his phone. Kyle is snoring against Stan’s leg, drooling a little. 

Everything’s okay and Kenny’s heart is full as he drops off everyone but Stan. They make their way back to Kenny’s house, hotboxing with the rest of the joint from earlier, passing through the dark streets with muscle memory alone. 

“I’m sorry about Wendy, dude,” Kenny says.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ve been on and off for years. It was only a matter of time.” Stan coughs, then sighs. “She’s just been weird recently. Cryptic as fuck, asking me what I want and if there’s anything I think I’d regret if I had to leave tomorrow.”

“Is there?” Kenny asks. He can’t quite hide his smile; had Wendy become just as much of a meddler as Kenny?

“Yeah, dude, there’s a ton—a  _ ton _ of stuff I’d regret. But how do I know if it’s important? How do I know what’s going to matter when I’m gone?”

As they pull into Kenny’s gravel driveway he can see the lights behind the windows, and he can see the figure of his mother bustling around, probably half-drunk and pathetic. He sighs, sitting in Stan’s car in silence for a moment. 

How  _ do _ you know what will matter once you’re gone? Kenny doesn’t know. He’s never been gone permanently, never even really left South Park with the intention of being gone. He always comes back. He’s always going to be stuck here, tied to his parents and to his house at the edge of town and to the cold slush on the ground.

“If you think you couldn’t live without something, without someone, I guess, you should make sure they know how you feel. If you think you couldn’t live with yourself leaving something ambiguous, you should clear it up. If it eats away at you tonight when you’re thinking about this, think about  _ why _ . Not everyone gets a million chances. Just go from there.” Kenny climbs out of the driver’s seat and pats the top of Stan’s car. “I’ll see you later, dude. Text me if you need me during the day, ok? I’m working this weekend.”

He leaves Stan to contemplate that, stopping on his front porch to take a breath before pushing open the jammed door, making his way inside. The warm atmosphere of his conversation with Stan ends when the smell of beer and cigarettes hits his nose again, his dad perched on the sofa.

“Shut that fuckin’ door!” His dad yells, throwing an ashtray in Kenny’s general direction. 

It beans him in the eye, sending ash scattered across his face, and Kenny grits his teeth so he doesn’t say anything shitty. He takes a deep breath as the door shuts. “Yes, sir,” he spits. He thinks about how a few days earlier Kyle had done the same on accident, how funny it had been. He thinks about how lucky his dad is that he’s too tired to get his ass beat, too sated and high to get into a brawl in his living room when he doesn’t know if Karen is in the other room. He thinks about how his eye hurts. Nobody in the world will ask questions if it’s bruised tomorrow. The ashtray’s contents, spilled all over his parka, fills him with rage. He thinks about the way Kyle had looked when Wendy grabbed his hand, and about Karen with her hair sticking up in the morning, and about Cartman and his cologne. He thinks about his cheesesteak. He goes to his room and cracks the window open and yells out into the night.

Everything is good, always so good, until it isn’t.

When the clock barely hits Thursday and he’s sure everyone is asleep and the television is turned off, Mysterion looks for a fight. 

Usually all he has to do is make his way across town to the storage facility, and so Mysterion rises yet again, sliding out Kenny McCormick’s window and across his yard, jogging in the cool South Park air until his lungs are burning with it. 

As is usually the case with late-night rendezvous, Mysterion isn’t too sure what he’s getting into by heading to the storage facility in his tighty-whities. Depending on the night, the band of freaks and geeks come and go. 

Most of his friends had given up on playing with sticks and elves and superhero costumes after middle school. It’s not like it changes anything. Mysterion doesn’t usually keep his hopes up for backup anyway. The exception to growing up has always been those with terrible home lives and nothing better to do, of course, and Mysterion finds the familiar and completely unsurprising atmosphere of Butters suffering at the hands of Cartman as he lifts the door to the Stotch family storage unit.

“Aw, jeez, Eric, I’m really just lookin’ to be alone tonight...” Butters says, voice echoing from somewhere beyond the stacked furniture and random string lights Butters set up in the Stotch’s storage. 

The difference between this and the unit Professor Chaos operates out of is like night and day, or the flick of a surge protector, to be more accurate. Butters is probably here reading a novel his dad threw out or watching DVDs on his laptop or doing that thing he does where he wears a dress sometimes. It’s Butters’ stuff, Butters’ private time, and it’s… it’s hard for Mysterion not to feel possessive over protecting it. It’s not that he’s even attracted to Butters, at least not any more. It’s just… he almost feels entitled to Butters’ undivided attention, because he’s the only one who has ever cared enough about Butters to know he had hobbies and interests. If Kenny is self-righteous in his ownership over Cartman, Mysterion is downright obsessive over Butters.

Butters had always been a little beam of sunshine, clouded by his own naïve conceptions about the world and his willingness to trust obvious lies, and like many other kids, Kenny had often taken advantage of Butters’ easily swindled nature. He’d helped Cartman with plenty of schemes, certainly, and by middle school Kenny was pulling a B-and-E almost every night to get patched up by gullible Butters and his shaking hands, and to sleep in his warm bed for a few hours.

One night—Kenny couldn’t recall when anymore—it had been awful at home, and he had been ready to find a ditch somewhere and freeze to death, but he had gone to Butters’ window instead, walking on autopilot with a head full of nothing. And Butters, of course, had ushered him inside, all solemn and serious in his mercy. Kenny had bled on his sheets, through to the mattress, and Butters was crying and crying, head bowed as if to pray, and when Kenny asked why, Butters smiled down at him, face dripping and pajamas covered in Kenny’s blood, and told him it was just because Kenny was his friend.

Kenny had looked out at the moon from the window as something inside him burst; Butters—someone with a home life that was possibly more cloying and oppressive than Kenny’s—did  _ this _ just because? Just for  _ Kenny’s sake? _ He had felt guilty. Horrified, at himself and at the treatment Butters endured, and at the thought that Kenny himself had become a part of the cycle, even while knowing what he was going through. 

Was he any better than Butters’ parents for taking advantage of him, too? Was he even any better than his own? It was overwhelming. He cried fat wet tears until he couldn’t cry, and all the while Butters propped him up gently against his headboard and wiped his face and brought him a glass of water and a Percocet he had stolen from his mother for the times Kenny needed stitches. Kenny’s conscience ached like sutures, suddenly feeling responsible for Butters in a way he’d only ever felt for his little sister. But it had felt so good at the same time, to be taken care of, to be seen. It always did—it still would, probably, if he’d make more time for Butters.

It’s just the icing on the goddamn cake after a shit day that Cartman has to come and trample all over the good things Mysterion has with Butters. Butters is Cartman’s favorite scapegoat, probably even more than Kyle.

Mysterion grits his teeth and spits on the floor, watching from the shadows as Cartman crossehis arms impatiently and Butters cowers in fear. He wishes he was Kenny and not Mysterion right now, to reassure Butters that Cartman has never been someone worth being scared of, but the mask on his face and the chill over his whole body keeps him silent. It’s a different set of rules, and Cartman is ever-unpredictable under the guise of his persona, so he has to keep the element of surprise just in case.

“Come  _ on _ , Butters,” Cartman says, still trying to disguise his voice. “I’m bored, and I didn’t get dressed and freeze my ass off walking here not to have some fun!”

“That’s fine of you to say, Eric, but you gotta understand… I got a math test tomorrow, and I don’t think I can focus on it if I’m all roughed up from one a’them kinda superhero fights tonight.”

“Jesus Christ, Butters, can you at least try and make it  _ sound _ less lame? What are you hanging out here for if you’re not playing?”

Butters fidgets with his knuckles. If there’s no intervention, he’s probably going to get his ass kicked. Cartman doesn’t give a damn about the concept of a fair fight. “Well, I was—”

Mysterion doesn’t care about a fair fight, either. “It doesn’t matter.” He breaks his silence, emerging from his position to the shock of both Butters and Cartman. “If he says he’s out, he’s out, fatass. Why don’t you just go back home?”

Cartman turns to fully face Mysterion, crossing his arms over his chest and sizing him up. It makes his skin crawl, just a little. It’s hard to distance himself from Kenny, especially standing right in front of his best friend in the name of justice, unclouded by the rush of adrenaline and anger he usually feels when he fights the Coon. He’s cute like this too, eyes wide and shining, cheeks red and chapped from the cold, undivided attention on Mysterion.

“Mysterion,” he booms, or at least tries, but with him it always just comes out a little whiny. “I didn’t, uh, think you were still on the beat.”

Mysterion rolls his eyes.  _ So fucking dramatic, _ he thinks, but then again, why had he come out here if not for this kind of bullshit? “I’m here when someone needs me.” He jerks his head towards Butters, who is beaming. At least Butters is always happy to see him. Mysterion softens just a little. “Are you going to leave him alone, or am I gonna have to kick your ass?”

“Aw, Mysterion, you don’t have to kick Eric’s ass for me! I’m sure he’ll just be goin’ if you—”

“Shut up _ ,  _ Butters,” Cartman barks, stamping his foot. “If you think I’m gonna just sit here and let Kenny of all people order me around, you’re mentally disturbed!”

Mysterion snorts. “So you  _ do  _ want to get your ass kicked?”

Cartman stamps his foot again. “You’re not gonna kick my ass, Kenny! Mind your own goddamn business and scram!”

“That’s Mysterion,” Butters helpfully adds.

“Shut  _ up, _ Butters!”

Mysterion takes a step closer, then another, and another. Cartman, to his credit, stands his ground aside from a nervous shuffle.

“You want to fight?” Mysterion asks, lifting a gloved hand. Cartman’s eyes focus on it warily. “Then let’s fight. You know where to go. And if you’re not still over there when I get there, I’ll TP your house for being such a pussy.” He finally closes the gap and grabs Cartman by the collar of his sweater, taking a strange satisfaction in knowing he’s stretching it out. “Now get the hell out.”

It’s not as intimidating with someone he can’t lift up for intimidation purposes, but the way he looms over Cartman and the ravenous look in his eyes must be enough, because he looks about ready to shit his pants just for a moment, scurrying out of the storage unit with haste. Mysterion spits on the ground again, but when he looks over and sees Butters grimace, he smears it with his sneaker and raises his shoulders in apology. 

“Hiya, Ken,” Butters chirps, cheerful as ever to have Kenny’s company. He drags out a mostly-squashed beanbag chair and a few pillows and beckons with his arms. 

Mysterion’s not staying long, not with Cartman dashing to the roof of the mall with his tail between his legs, but Butters is hospitable. “Oh, um. Hi. How, uh… How’s it been?” 

“Oh, well, just the old so-and-so with me!” Butters never gives a direct answer to questions like that, especially not with Kenny. It’s unspoken, kind of. Home stays at home until it bursts out in a flurry of fists and tears. “You sure scared Eric right out of here, though. Are you doin’ okay?”

Kenny grimaces. “Yeah, I’m…” His eye is throbbing. His teeth hurt. He needs a cigarette. He wants to hide in Stan’s trunk and go to California in the summer and never look back. He’s so fucking  _ tired _ . “I’m doing good. Working, you know how it is.”

Butters smiles in that placating way he does, almost a little creepy when it doesn’t reach his eyes, like he knows Kenny is withholding something only he can dissect. “Not really, but I’m glad you’re doin’ somethin’.”

It’s cold in the unit, but Butters keeps it cozy enough with blankets strewn everywhere and a space heater buzzing away happily. Kenny wraps a blanket around himself, cursing his stupid breezy superhero costume. It’s not really meant for sedentary work. He scrubs his face and sighs. “How’s school?”

Again, Butters smiles, but there’s a little more life in it this time. Kenny’s shoulders relax a little. “It’s fine! Like I said to Eric, I’m studying for a math test, and I have a notebook check in my biology class I’m darn sure not ready for, but everything is lookin’ good for the future!” Butters preens, adding, “I got a 100 in home ec last semester, too.”

Kenny grins, thinking half-perverted thoughts about adorable Butters in his home-sewn apron and his cute pastel baking tools, laughing with flour on his chin. It’s a shame—Kenny had really liked home ec when he was still going to school. Butters was too smart for the classes Kenny was in, but they had always waited outside the classroom to meet each other before their one elective together. Kenny would bring one of those expensive bottled coffees from the vending machine for Butters if he waited, and Butters would bring a Sprite or a thermos of soup if it was really cold, and they’d chat over embroidery hoops and bowls of their own cooking. 

“I’m glad, dude. I’m really glad.” Kenny’s lost in his thoughts again, thinking about prom with a rolling stomach. It’s not like Butters can’t tell, though. He’s always been good at calling Kenny’s bluff. 

“Well, Ken… you know I hate to bring up superhero business in my civvies, but…” He offers a thermos to Kenny and rubs his knuckles together, a nervous habit he still hasn’t outgrown. “Are you… you know,  _ mad _ at Eric? Did he do somethin’ to you?”

Kenny laughs abruptly, halfway to taking a sip. “Um,” he takes a long sip before replying. Butters’ french onion soup tastes so fucking good it deserves a pause. It warms Kenny right up, from the inside out. “That’s—isn’t he always doing something to someone?”

“Of course!” Butters shrugs. “But I mean—has he gotcha all twisted up about things? You seemed a little tense, that’s all.”

Had he seemed tense? Well, fucking obviously, he’d barged right in and bullied Cartman into a fight. That was usually a good indicator of Kenny’s mood.

“Oh, uh, that. Nah, not him specifically. It’s just…” He sighs. He  _ could _ tell Butters the truth, about his unsubtle attempts to matchmake Kyle and Stan, about Craig taking him to prom out of pity, about Cartman’s red cheeks as he’d laughed in Kenny’s face, about the hunger jolting in his belly telling Kenny to kiss him. “I think I’m going crazy,” he says instead. “I need to get laid, maybe, or do coke. Anyway, I, uh. I gotta go.”

He’s being cryptic, ignoring Butters’ concerned look and gentle hand on his shoulder, but his thoughts are alight, dancing across his vision. He needs to meet the Coon before it gets too late, before the weird mess in his gut mellows out again and the anger shifts to acceptance. 

Mysterion pauses at the edge of the fence, staring up at the exposed stars and the moon shining down, before taking off into the darkness. Everything in South Park is a brisk jog away, including the mall, and Mysterion is only slightly out of breath once he arrives.

He circles around back, body pressed close to the wall to avoid detection, and climbs the maintenance ladder to the roof. The Coon is there, tapping away on his phone against an AC unit, cloak spread around his shoulders like a blanket. Mysterion’s stomach flip-flops—now or never.

“Coon,” he growls.

The hero scrambles to his feet. “Mysterion, I—“

“I’m not here to talk. I think I made that pretty clear.” He takes a step closer. 

The Coon takes a step back, but only barely. They’re both bowed up like cats now, Mysterion’s eyes trained on the Coon’s face, nervous gaze darting around to find some kind of shelter to separate them. He catches sight of the thick skylight that normally illuminates the South Park Mall’s Christmas tree like a beacon in the night, aiming to get around to it. 

Not going to happen. Mysterion tackles the Coon abruptly, shoving hard on his chest until he falls, fingers curling into the fabric of his costume. He raises his fist and draws it back, connecting with the Coon’s soft belly.

The Coon coughs, wind knocked out of him. He struggles with Mysterion’s weight for a moment before jamming a pudgy knee between them, shoving Mysterion’s hip with the sole of his shoe, sending the antihero skidding across the concrete roof. He scrambles for the upper hand, pulling Mysterion’s left arm behind his back and twisting it.

Mysterion cries out. The Coon smirks. If only he could just get to his belt with his free hand… 

“Nice try, Kenny,” says the Coon, grip on Mysterion’s forearm tight. If he’s not careful he’ll manhandle the arm right out of the socket. (At least he knows Butters will put it back into place.)

Mysterion struggles against it, cheek to the concrete. He wriggles slowly, lifting his hips off the ground where the Coon has him pinned and wrapping a few fingers around a canister containing a smoke bomb, pulling the pin and sending a plume of the stuff back at the Coon, who coughs and goes tumbling backwards. Mysterion pounces at once, scrambling in the fog for any part of the Coon’s outfit, dragging himself closer. 

The pair of them wrestle, each trying to establish himself as a clear winner. Mysterion gets a hit on the Coon’s jaw, and bites the hand that comes up to deflect the punch, too. The Coon pulls Mysterion’s hair to get some distance between them and busts Mysterion’s lip with his forehead. They roll around scrambling for the upper hand for what feels like hours to Mysterion, lost in the sensation of the fight.

Eventually the Coon catches him off guard, dribbling blood from his nose onto Mysterion’s emblem as his breaths heave. It’s almost funny, the way he mirrors the wrestling match between Cartman and Kenny a few days ago, chubby fingers enclosed around Mysterion’s wrists, holding him down with body weight. Mysterion looks away from him, breathing just as hard around his split lip, bruised cheek pressed against the concrete. 

He’s flushed from more than the cold, more than the exertion. He wants the Coon off him  _ right now _ , wants to walk home in the cold and sit in the snow banks outside his house for a few hours to relax.

“Kenny,” the Coon says, or maybe it’s Cartman instead, dropping the façade to send Kenny’s stomach dropping through the concrete . “Why do you… do you have a boner right now!?” 

The way he says it is mortifying; Mysterion doesn’t even have to look to see that horrified grin or those mirthful, dangerous eyes shining down on him. Mysterion says nothing, only struggles to break free. The warmth creeping up his ears speaks for him. When he dares a glance over to the Coon’s face, he regrets the silence. A mixture of emotions passes over his expression, but his eyes remain wide and analyzing, scanning Mysterion’s face and his thrashing mortified body as though giving an x-ray. 

Eventually he stumbles back, off Mysterion, and pulls his hands to his own chest as if burned.

Mysterion grits his teeth and sits up, looking at the ground and tugging his hood back around his face. When Cartman becomes aware of things in his life that challenge the perceptions he has about people, especially his friends, he lashes out. He likes to destroy things like that, to keep himself neatly aligned in the cherubic personal bubble he keeps everyone out of, to exercise his control.

“Kenny, you—you poor piece of nympho shit!” Cartman sounds hysterical, and when Mysterionlooks up at him, his face is beet red, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he processes. It’s like the time Kyle told him the only reason they still hung out was because of Kenny, when Cartman had cried sweetly into Kenny’s shoulder a few hours later, fist tangled in his hair. “What’s your fucking problem? Not enough Butterses in Park County for you to plow?”

“Fuck you,” Mysterion says, rising to his feet. He’s ashamed, certainly, but damn if he’s going to let Cartman know. He spits, blood and saliva mixing in a splat on the pavement. “Butters has nothing to do with this.”

Cartman snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s got a little scrape on his cheek, a crisp fine line of blood trickling onto his costume. Kenny, for some reason, thinks  _ I want to lick it off him. _

“You’re fucked up,” he says smugly.

“Woah, you really cracked the code on that one, fatass. Any more shocking revelations?”

“Do you  _ like  _ me, Kenny?” His voice is a liquid grin, and he takes a step closer. 

They dance towards the edge of the roof like this, until Kenny’s calves press against the concrete ledge precariously, nowhere else to run.

Kenny’s body feels like it’s being electrocuted, all his nerves on edge with embarrassment and frustration. He doesn’t know why he thought this was a good idea, chalking it up to his wiped-clean mind after crying out his window and the desire to be close to someone after. He should have just texted Stan. Fuck. 

“Get real,” Kenny says, trying unconvincingly to be Mysterion again. “You’re a shitty superhero and a backstabbing traitor of a friend. Don’t flatter yourself over a—over some wrestling.”

Cartman’s eyes sparkle dangerously. He edges closer to Kenny again, who leans away, cape dangling over the edge. “I knew you had a thing for me,” he says, reaching out to take Kenny’s hip in one of his hands. His touch feels like a fire spreading. Kenny can’t take his eyes off it. “You’re so bad at hiding it.”

“I—I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“You always crawled into bed with me, didn’t you? Even though you weren’t even cold.” Kenny’s mouth moves, but he can’t find the words to speak, so Cartman continues, pressing his other hand to Kenny’s free hip. “And you wanted to play as  _ my _ princess, right? You worship me, don’t you? You’re obsessed.”

Kenny shakes his head, infuriated. Of course Cartman can’t take this seriously, motherfucker. He’s too proud, ego too big to be able to understand the nuance of Kenny’s complicated feelings. Worship?  _ Obsessed? _ “No, I—“

“Kenny, why didn’t you just say something? I mean,” Cartman says, pressing his face up close to Kenny’s, closing the gap between them until they’re practically nose to nose. “I could have taken care of this a long time ago.”

This is wrong, all wrong. Kenny hadn’t realized he’d gotten his hopes up for anything involving the smug asshole in his face, but his heart is plummeting, flopping wet and naked on the floor for Cartman to stomp with his heel. He tears up a little, looking away and biting his lip. Of course he gave his childhood friend too much credit—Cartman had put up his walls the moment he felt Kenny underneath him, thinking in black and white. Kenny was nothing more than a sex-obsessed white trash junkie. Kenny thought they’d moved past this closed-off Cartman years ago. It still stings.

Cartman’s fingers rise from Kenny’s hips to his waist, squeezing softly. This sucks. He hates Cartman right now. Smug asshole, fucking self-obsessed fat fuck. Kenny, childishly, wants Kyle, wants to curl up on the trundle bed in Kyle’s room and cry, have Stan and Kyle on either sides of him rubbing his back and giving him words of praise. 

He should have stayed with Butters. He should have just fought his dad instead.

“Back the fuck up, Cartman,” he says, embarrassed by the soaking wet sound of his own voice.

“Kenny,” Cartman cooes teasingly, thinking he’s got the upper hand when he’s really just widening the gap. “Don’t be so shy!”

“I said back up!” Kenny yells. He can’t take it, and he leans back even further to get away, shoving Cartman’s hands off his waist. 

The world pauses, as it always does when bad things happen to Kenny. He sees the world like a movie, sputtering between the look of horror on Cartman’s face as Kenny loses his balance and slides backwards over the ledge, and Cartman’s hands as they scramble for his cape. 

The claws on his fingers do nothing but shred it to ribbons.  _ Kenny! _ Cartman mouths, but Kenny can’t hear it, not really. Instead he plummets, and he hears the sickening crack of his bones and his skull and his everything as it hits the parking lot. 

He feels pain, immense and familiar, for just a moment. And then he feels nothing at all besides darkness, and he dies.

* * *

Kenny’s crumpled body is pathetic, bent out of shape and surrounded by a pool of slowly seeping blood. A fat snowflake perches on Kenny’s nose like a butterfly. He looks sad, and frozen. Eric Cartman wants to think  _ ‘serves him right for being such a nymphomaniac’,  _ wants to kick Kenny’s stupid irrational ass for doing this shit, but he pauses with his shoe hovering over Kenny’s lifeless hand, unable to find the wrath to stomp on it.

Instead, he plants his palms flat against the whitewashed brick of the mall exterior, mind swirling with the inky fear in Kenny’s eyes as he’d tipped over the ledge, the way he hadn’t even reached to grab Eric’s outstretched hand. He stares at the worn blacktop under his shoes and nothing else. He dry-heaves, sobs wetly, and then properly throws up all over the wall.

When Eric looks up again, when his mind has cleared somewhat and his sickness passes, the sky is starting to lighten, the world is starting to wake up, and Kenny McCormick is still dead. If he looks at the body a second time, which he does—of course he does, he can see Kenny on the asphalt beside him, starting to be buried under falling snow, all purple and red and exposed bones and brain matter.

Kenny is still there, still dead, coagulated and disgusting.

Okay, maybe he still feels sick.

He makes it home, somehow, hands shaking, wishing he had anything with him other than his stupid costume. The clock on the stove says it’s almost five in the morning. Goddamn Kenny and his stupid feelgood fest with Butters, keeping him up so fucking late, and for  _ what?!  _ Some weird desperate foreplay, and then….

Another wave of nausea comes over him. Kenny really pissed him the fuck off, and now he can’t even make Kenny feel like shit about tearing up his nerves and subjecting him to the sight of Kenny’s dead body, because it’s  _ Kenny’s fucking dead body _ .

Eric sighs, pouring himself a cup of water and taking two aspirin from the medicine cabinet upstairs. He doesn’t know why he bothers trying to sleep, but he changes his clothes and climbs into bed anyway. He needs to do  _ something  _ before he has to face everyone at school in a few hours. He tosses for a while and attempts scrolling social media to tire himself out, but it’s no use. 

He can’t stop thinking about it. Had Kenny really  _ died _ only an hour or two ago? And now Eric is laying in bed, thinking about his notebook check in Chemistry and finding out Kenny was with Kyle and Stan earlier? Everything ended up absolutely fucked after he went to see Butters. Maybe he just should have gone home and suffered the toilet papery wrath. And what was that shit with Kenny acting like such a badass and taking himself so seriously in the storage lot, and then getting off to it? 

Eric presses his pillow over his face and sighs. What was with Kenny in general? He showed up less and less in Eric’s life, asking nothing more than to hang out. He was too positive all the time, too quiet, watching Eric and Stan and Kyle when they were all together with that complacent smile of his.  _ Just happy to be here! _ Like a dog or something. 

Is it any wonder Eric thinks he’s fucking obsessed?

Eric can harp on Stan and Kyle for their dependency on one another all he wants, but he’d been Kenny’s enabler before he went and complicated the rhythm they had by dropping out. Kenny had been over almost every night from 6th grade and even into high school, climbing into his window smelling like a distinctly McCormick mix of whiskey and cigarettes and sweat, inserting himself into Eric’s arms. But honestly, who could deny poor, pathetic Kenny when he wanted to be selfish? Not Eric, who without fail rolled over to face Kenny and held out his arms for the cold of Kenny’s exposed skin as he clung to Eric and shook. 

It’s not Eric’s fault he went and caught feelings over it. Kenny needed to be indulged sometimes, like a touch-starved animal, fed and wrapped in blankets and kept at arm’s length until he was ready to purr in Eric’s lap. Kyle and Stan didn’t understand that because they were nosy gaywads with hero complexes, but Eric was pretty good at not giving in to Kenny’s martyrdom.

He dreams without falling asleep, really, feverishly remembering the period of time when Kenny had been dabbling pretty hard in makeup for whatever asinine reason the whoreson had come up with, and Eric had taken to loitering around to watch him get ready. Kenny was trying, and he didn’t look half bad, but his only exposure to women were the whores in Playboy and the dumb sluts on Fear Factor, and eventually it started to irk Eric.

“My mom used to tell me all about this shit when she got ready in the morning.” It had burst out of him while they were changing in the bathroom, Kenny prodding at a stubborn nearly-healed bruise. Eric snatched the makeup from Kenny. “Let me cover it up.”

Kenny always tensed up when Eric commented on the constant migration of child abuse across his face, but he was surprisingly compliant about it. After Eric was satisfied and the bruise had disappeared with only a handful of Kenny’s freckles as a sacrifice, he kept going, transfixed by the drag of the brushes across Kenny’s sleepy eyelids. Eventually Kenny took over again and Eric tied his Grand Wizard robe over his clothes distractedly, watching the ‘o’ of Kenny’s mouth as he leaned across the sink, concentrating on doing his own lipstick.

“You could almost pass for a princess now,” Eric said as they descended the stairs together.

“You think so?” The princess lingered in front of a mirror in Eric’s living room for a second, staring at herself with an expression brimming with something that made Eric a little uncomfortable. He felt like a voyeur to something he wasn’t supposed to see, even though they were just having a conversation.

Eric had gulped, face burning, and looked away. “Maybe if you close one eye and squint. You still kind of look like a whore. When is Butters coming over?”

Eric wakes up at 11:30, tangled in a nightmarish cocoon of blankets and sweating miserably. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, and he can’t remember what his dreams were about anymore. Kenny, maybe? Drag? His mom is long-gone, and has left him a note apologizing for taking the car, but it’s just as well. Eric putters around sleeping for a while and arrives as class lets out for lunch, shoving his way into a conversation between Wendy and Stan.

“Hello, hippies,” he says in lieu of a greeting. “Have a good date in Denver?”

Stan wrinkles his nose. “Why are you stalking us, dude?”

“I go on Facebook, Stan, same as everyone else! Who would be interested enough in your emo selfies and faggy music recommendations to stalk you?”

Eric can’t help but tune most of the conversation out after that. His head is killing him, and he can’t help but feel sick and sad for some reason. By the time he and Kyle and Butters are gathered at a table in the courtyard, he’s looking up into the cloudy sky, leg bouncing aggressively as he picks at his lunch.

Kyle opens his fat mouth, though, and says something annoying enough to snap him out of it. “What’s your deal today, fat boy? Watching your weight?” He waves his hand in front of Eric’s face when Eric doesn’t reply. “Helloooo, anyone in there?”

“Kyle, do you need me to acknowledge your bitching all the time? Trust me, we can all hear your shrill voice just fine.”

Kyle frowns. “Were you even on the bus this morning?”

Eric presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “No, you needy Jew, I slept in today. I was up late last night, doing important things  _ you _ don’t need to concern yourself with!”

“Oh, that’s right,” Butters finally pipes in, around a mouthful of food. “How did your conversation with Kenny go last night?”

“You hung out with Kenny last night?” Kyle asks.

Eric ignores him, instead replying to Butters. “Conversation is a stretch. He just wanted someone to take out his daddy issues on.”

“Is he okay?” Kyle asks. “I texted him last night but he didn’t answer me.”

Eric groans in frustration. “I don’t fucking know. He was pissed off, I know that, and then… then he just…” He clams up a little, coming close to saying something dangerous.  _ He came onto me _ isn’t even close to accurate. Eric had kind of come onto Kenny, which was a thought he didn’t even have time to unpack. Especially not at fucking school of all places, and especially not with Kyle. For some reason, he has the sinking feeling that something important happened, but… it feels so far away. “Maybe I was dreaming. I think I just went home after we met in the U-Stor-It and had a fucking nightmare.” Eric sighs. “So weak.”

“Dreaming about Kenny, huh?” Kyle says, not looking up from his phone. “Hm.”

“What kind of a nonchalant statement is that?” Eric’s face flushes. “Stop being so sexually deviant, Kyle!”

Kyle huffs and sets his phone down too hard. “It’s not like it’s my fantasy, you closet case! Everyone knows how it is with two!”

“How it  _ is _ , Kyle? Get real! Nothing  _ is,  _ except whatever fantasy you and Stan and Wendy make up after your threeways.

Kyle opens up his mouth to shout. Butters stands up quickly, putting his hands between them. “Woah, Eric, I don’t think Kyle means nothin’ by it! It’s just that… you know! Everyone knows Ken’s got a real soft spot for you.”

“A  _ soft spot _ ?” Eric scoffs. “Yeah, right! Kenny’s got a soft spot for taking advantage of my generosity!”

Kyle rolls his eyes. “You don’t have a goddamn generous bone in your body, Cartman. He’s your best friend! Can’t you even act like you care about him?” 

“You and Stan are basically platonic butt buddies already but that doesn’t mean something’s  _ up _ between you, does it?” Eric pulls his bag up onto his shoulder and stands up, feeling even more irritated somehow. Kyle is always trying to be coy, deflecting his weird quasi-relationship problems with Stan onto everyone else. “What a joke! Yet again Kyle is talking out his ass, trying to convert everyone to his backwards gay shit!”

Only a few heads turn to watch the shouting match; everyone is pretty used to this from Eric and Kyle. From across the school courtyard Eric can see Stan craning his neck around Jimmy and Token, watching Kyle go red in the face, halfheartedly making sure he won’t explode. A lot of good that’s doing. Kyle is standing too now, hands gripped around his lunch tray as if he’s going to hit Eric with it. 

Butters looks around nervously, knocking his knuckles together. “Listen, fellas, I dunno if now’s the best time…”

“Go fuck yourself, you ignorant piece of shit! Kenny told me himself how he feels about you, and you could really do with a—“

“I’m sick of hearing about how Kenny feels about me! I don’t care what that buttfucking bimbo feels about anything, Kyle! You should know better than anyone that once you move out of this shithole town and into a little townhouse in the city so you and Stan can take turns fisting each other all day, Kenny McCormick isn’t going to be on your mind one bit! The sooner you realize that lost cause is nothing but a leech to society, the better off you’ll fucking be!” Eric storms off, feeling Kyle’s eyes on his back.

If Kenny knew the things he had said, he’d probably be pretty hurt. Eric feels a little nervous about the possibility of Kyle telling Kenny about it, but dispels the concern quickly. Kenny had no moral high ground anymore, not after the events of the night before. Eric had the motherlode of all dirt.

“Well excuse me,” Kyle cries, “for thinking that you could use a lesson in giving a shit about the only person who actually  _ enjoys  _ talking to you!” He always has to have the last word. Fucking Kyle. Eric doesn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around. “I’m sure Kenny will be psyched to hear he’s been wasting his time!”

Eric briefly considers finishing his classes, but even after pacing around the bathroom for the rest of the lunch period, he’s biting the inside of his cheek, feeling insane. He decides to call it quits for the day and slips out of the parking lot as his classmates file back to the school building. Eric goes straight to his room when he gets home, turning the lights off and taking off his shoes. Fuck school. He curls into his bedsheets and sleeps for hours, dreaming of nothing.

On Friday morning, Eric drives his mom’s car to Kenny’s house before school, expecting to stall in the driveway until Kenny gets home from work, but his truck is already in the driveway, snow piled up in the back, sagging the loose bumper. It’s not like Eric gives a shit if Kenny actually goes to work, but he finds himself annoyed anyway at the inconvenience of hopping out of his car and trudging through the unshoveled snow to bang on the McCormicks’ front door.

It takes a minute, but eventually Karen answers, still in her pajamas. “Hi, Eric,” she says cheerfully, yawning. “Kenny’s not home right now.”

“Oh,” he says, feeling a little let down. He must be whoring it up at Craig’s house or something, taking acid and painting on Tweek. Not that he even gives a shit. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and kicks at the snow on the stoop. He hadn’t expected Kenny to be absent, and he’s barely ever said two words to Kenny’s preteen sister. “Okay, nevermind then.”

Karen waves as she shuts the door, and Eric finds himself even more disappointed as he drives to school and falls into the gayest conversation ever with Stan and Kyle at Stan’s locker. Kyle is still pointedly trying to ignore him, panties still twisted about what Eric said about Kenny the day before. Eric stands by it; soon Kyle would be off in a dorm room pining over Stan and micromanaging his own life and Kenny would be the last thing on his mind.

“I know you don’t like pineapple, Stan, but when it’s in trail mix it doesn’t even have the same texture! What’s the problem?”

“It’s the taste,” Stan whines, shaking a plastic bag full of trail mix and picking past the pineapple chunks. “It’s too sour, and it makes my tongue feel all tingly. You eat them, Kyle, I don’t wanna waste them.”

Eric says, “You’re allergic to pineapple, you retard. And this conversation sucks.”

Kyle chews a dehydrated pineapple chunk aggressively, giving Stan a look. Eric had never quite gotten the hang of reading the looks Kyle could give, and he doesn’t care enough to start now.

“Good morning, Cartman!” Stan claps his hands around the bag. “How was skipping school?

“Has Kenny texted you back?” Kyle asks.

Eric rolls his eyes. Again with this? He couldn’t fucking escape. All he wanted to do was  _ not _ think about Kenny, but the parasite followed him even when he pulled his disappearing act. “No, I haven’t. And why do you care? Maybe he’s on a bender and doesn’t want your bitching bringing down his high.”

Kyle bares his braces angrily. “What did you do to him the other night, fatass, kill him?”

“Not funny,” Stan says, though he eyes Eric as though he wouldn’t doubt it. “Did you say something to him?”

Eric’s face burns. Kyle and Stan don’t need to know about their conversation on the roof, and they definitely don’t need to hear it from  _ him _ . He needs to clear things up with Kenny the next time they’re together, to make sure Kenny isn’t going to go around gossiping to Butters that they’re fucking or something. He grinds his teeth. “I didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know already,” he says finally.

“I told you, Stan, he probably fucked Kenny up!” Kyle grabs Stan’s forearm in worry. Stan rubs the back of his head nervously. Eric wants to barf.

“Okay,” Stan says after a moment. “I guess once Kenny starts talking to us again, we just have to be…nice. Supportive, you know? Make sure he’s okay.”

“Will you listen to yourselves?  _ We have to be supportive. _ Do you guys even know what Kenny is like?” Eric crosses his arms. 

“So what, we just act like we didn’t even notice he was gone?”

“Just treat him like Kenny!” Eric half-yells, exasperated. “So what if he disappears? That’s how he is. If he wanted to make a big deal about it he would. He thinks he’s so grown-up, and he can handle himself better than you two dysfunctional faggots, so let him die in some shitty motel somewhere!” 

“I swear to god, you fat bastard, if you call me a fag one more fucking time I’m going to knock your teeth out!”

“Kyle,” Stan warns, stepping between them. “Relax, dude. I don’t want to admit it, but Cartman is… kind of right.” Kyle looks ready to go off the rails, but Stan holds a hand up to show intention to continue and he settles down.  _ God. _ If Eric spent all his time stuck in cars with Stan and Kyle’s public displays of homoeroticism like Kenny, he’d disappear too.

Stan checks his phone, like he’s expecting Kenny to call at any moment. “I mean about Kenny, being an adult. He’s probably fine. I mean, what if he just has a cold, or he went out of town?”

“You don’t think he’d tell  _ someone  _ if he was leaving?” Kyle huffs. “I just don’t like this.”

“He’s not your wife, Kyle,” Eric says, suddenly completely over this conversation. He wants the warning bell to ring so everyone will scatter and he can focus on something that isn’t goddamn Kenny. “This is what happens when you take something in from the streets—you get sad and surprised when it leaves, worry yourself sick over it, but a stray always shows up when it needs to be fed! Leave out a titty mag and some Taco Bell and I’m sure he’ll find a way home.”

His classes go by too slowly, his teachers too shrill or too boring or both. Even Bebe and Clyde having a passive aggressive lab partnership in Biology isn’t funny. It’s contagious and hellish, the way Stan and Kyle have infected Eric’s brain with thoughts about Kenny. 

He’s not even sure why they spend all their time stressing about what Kenny’s doing. What  _ could _ he be doing besides self-flagellating or jerking off or getting beat? He wasn’t pockmarked or more emaciated looking than usual the last time Eric saw him, and he supposedly has a job, so he’s obviously just doing what he does best—avoiding his problems by crashing on someone’s couch. No way is Eric going out and forcibly dragging him home. Going off the grid for periods of time is Kenny’s specialty.

The day lags on, but finally the last bell rings. Thankfully, Butters is the only one who joins him on the walk to his mom’s car. “I’m real sorry about lunch yesterday,” he says absently, teeth chattering in the unexpectedly windy afternoon. “Have a good night, Eric.” Butters loiters by the passenger’s side door for a moment, fingers anxiously twisting the straps of his backpack. Eric sighs. Why doesn’t he just ask for a fucking ride? 

“Get in the goddamn car, Butters.” 

The ride home is silent; Butters, wisely, keeps his mouth mostly shut for the duration, tapping his fingers on his knee to the radio. It’s the station that plays hits from the 80s, the station his mom likes. The song ends and the DJ starts gabbing about something or other, but Eric doesn’t catch it because Butters finally speaks. They’re almost home; Butters is pretty smart about when to poke the bear. 

“After you left, Kyle said some real mean things.” Butters pauses for a moment, considering his words. Years of riding in the passenger’s seat of Eric’s car had conditioned him to choose his words carefully, but Eric still hates that it takes Butters forever to figure out what he wants to say. “He says you don’t care about him, and that you’re only ever interested in Kenny because of what he can do for you.”

Eric’s eyes snap over to Butters in the passenger’s seat, eyebrow twitching with annoyance. He cowers against the door, looking at Eric with an earnest expression.

“First of all, Butters,” Eric says, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly as he inhaled and exhaled, counting the seconds. “I don’t give a shit about what that dickbrain has to say. Nobody knows what the fuck Kenny gets up to, except for fucking  _ me  _ apparently. And second of all, I’m pretty much the only one that goes to Kenny first about anything! I let him use my shower, I ask him how is fucking job is even though I couldn’t care less, I’m the one who told him he should bother showing up to prom!”

Butters nods seriously, twisting his fingers together in his lap. “You must really care about him, I guess… Is that what he was mad about…? What y’all talked about at the mall?”

“No,” Eric says, pulling in beside Butters’ dad’s car in the driveway. As always, he’s almost surprised Steven Stotch isn’t standing in the front lawn with a belt or something. “We just... fought.” Eric bites his cheek. “He made it weird.”

Butters pauses with his hand on the doorframe, then sinks back into his seat for a moment. If anyone’s familiar with Kenny making it weird, it’s probably Butters. Eric pinches the bridge of his nose. The car stalls.

“Weird?”

“Yeah.” If Butters wants elaboration, he’s shit out of luck. Somehow the silence seems to give away his secret anyway, because Butters nods and rubs his chin. “It was weird, okay?”

After another night of tossing and turning in his bed, Eric somehow finds himself at Kenny’s house bright and early, before the sun is up. Kenny’s truck still sits in the grass, and the snow piling on it hasn’t been touched. 

This time, Eric stands at the door for a long time before knocking. Karen answers the door again, disheveled, with a toothbrush in her mouth.

“Cartman?” She looks surprised. Eric is also pretty surprised. He’s not even sure why he’s here, freezing his ass off on a run-down front porch at 6:30 in the goddamn morning on a fucking Saturday, just to try and talk to Kenny, but he is, because this shit has him screwed up, and Kenny is a fucking coward for going AWOL.

“Yeah,” he says dumbly. “Is Kenny home?”

She shrugs. “Not really.” She looks over her shoulder into the house. From somewhere in another room, Eric hears the tap running. “Um, you can come inside I guess. My mom’s not home today.” She smiles at him briefly and rushes down the hall. Eric steps through the door and shuts it behind him, not feeling any warmer than when he was standing outside.

“Where is he?” Eric asks, sitting awkwardly on Kenny’s couch, eyeing up a sagging stack of cardboard boxes holding the McCormicks’ TV. Kenny’s old N64 sits beside the pile on the floor, controllers rolled up and tucked away. There’s a sticker on it that looks suspiciously like something Butters would have, and the thought prickles at the back of Eric’s neck. So Kenny was inviting  _ Butters _ over to hang out, but not Eric? Not that he’s keen to spend his time in a dump like this, cold and eyeing suspicious carpet stains, cigarette smoke lingering in the air, but still. It’s the principle of it. Kenny is  _ his  _ friend.

Karen emerges from the hallway, dressed for the day and carrying Kenny’s cell phone in her hand. Eric straightens his back, not sure where to put his hands. “Sometimes he just disappears, but he always comes back.” Karen sighs, tossing her backpack down on the floor and flopping down beside him. She gestures to Kenny’s cracked screen. “He left his phone, so he’ll definitely be back for it.”

Eric eyes the blank screen of Kenny’s phone, eyes burning holes into his own reflection. How had Kenny gotten him to this point, he wondered. Is this part of one of his meddling master plans, getting Eric in his house to rub elbows with the rats and his crooked-toothed sister, to learn some kind of cryptic Kenny-lesson or get a new perspective? It wouldn’t surprise him.

“Where does he go?” 

“Oh, um,” Karen laughs. “I don’t know. Sometimes he just does.”

“I’m surprised. He tells you everything, I feel like.” More than Eric, surely, and they were best friends once.

Karen shrugs, crossing the room in her sneakers to dig around in the McCormicks’ rusty fridge, not giving a second thought to the broken glass and cigarette butts that litter the carpet. “He doesn’t tell _anyone_ everything.” 

It makes Eric's gut flare up a little, annoyed at the idea Kenny is keeping secrets.  “Aren’t you… worried? Don’t you get scared he isn’t coming back?” 

Eric watches as Karen drinks milk from the carton, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand when she’s finished, just like her brother. “Do _ you _ ?” she asks, smiling at him with a familiar crooked grin. 

In elementary and middle school, it had seemed like Kenny was always running away; sometimes he would come back the next day, or the next week, or the occasional few months, but nobody batted an eye, because Kenny’s lack of welfare was the status quo. His disappearances lessened in quantity over the course of what little high school he attended, but that had also come with weeks upon weeks of radio silence whenever he  _ did _ . Had it ever even stopped? Eric doesn’t know anymore—he hasn’t bothered to check on Kenny like this since they were in eighth grade. What  _ if  _ Kenny doesn’t come home?

“I don’t care what Kenny does,” he finally says, even though he doesn’t really believe himself.

Karen smiles wider, showing off the jagged McCormick family grill, and her eyes seem to crinkle with some kind of secret.  _ God _ , Eric thinks,  _ he really did raise her _ . “Okay, then why are you here? And why were you here yesterday?”

“I—” Eric’s ears prickle with embarrassment, and he picks at a hangnail on his thumb. He’s not sure what to say, so he lies because he’s good at it. “He has one of my, uh—he has something that belongs to me.”

“Oh.” Karen’s face does something Eric doesn’t quite understand—she looks a little disappointed, or maybe sad that Kenny  _ actually  _ doesn’t have anyone to check in on him. It looks annoyingly like him. “You can go to his room and get it, if you want.”

Eric nods and stands, baffled yet again at the idea that Kenny has somehow gotten into this mess. He doesn’t even want to go snooping around Kenny’s shitty room, but he’s committed to the lie, so he makes his way down the crack-den hallway and past Kenny’s door.

Kenny’s room is a disaster area, but it’s relatively clean compared to the messiness of his childhood. A pile of dirty clothes spills out across the floor from the bottom of his closet, there are a surprising number of bulging sketchbooks littered across the carpet, and the chill from Kenny’s propped window hits Eric as soon as he swings the door closed behind him. Kenny’s backpack sits on his bare bed, phone charger peeking out from the unzipped pocket. (No wonder he’d spent his entire childhood trying to swindle his way into Eric’s bed—he didn’t even bother with sheets.) Beside the window, polaroids and letters and drawings are haphazardly held up by sagging push pins. Kenny still has a Beastie Boys poster. 

Other than that, though, it’s like Kenny never existed, or like he’s dead or something. Without him and his ugly smile and the reek of weed and cigarettes to put the room into context, it just looks like any other shitty bedroom in any other shitty crack den. It’s depressing. Eric realizes he’s been standing in Kenny’s doorway for a while and shakes his head, clearing his thoughts. Fuck Kenny, and fuck his stupid room.

Eric steps over a particularly crusty looking pile of laundry and cracks open one of the sketchbooks; he didn’t even know Kenny liked to draw, but the entire book is filled with illustrations of clothed and naked figures alike, carefully inked out in ballpoint pen. Eric flips through it with furrowed brows. 

It’s all pretty good stuff. 

In between spreads of naked women contorted into positions Eric’s never even considered, there’s a whole page dedicated to Mysterion’s costume, scribbled notes in Kenny’s indecipherable handwriting surrounding sketches for design changes. There are unicorns, impressively realistic nugs of weed, and even a few drawings of Kenny himself, cartoony body throwing up a peace sign from the page. 

_ Fuck you _ , Eric thinks directly at the little pictures of Kenny.  _ Fuck you!!!!! _

The door swings open and Eric jumps and carelessly drops the sketchbook. “Did you find it?” Karen asks from around the door, watching Eric in the doorway and bouncing on her heels. “I’m leaving now, so you should probably go.”

“Find what?” Eric says dumbly, heart still in his throat from Karen’s intrusion. 

“What you were looking for,” she answers.

“Uh, no,” Eric says, following her away from Kenny’s room and out of the McCormick house. It was true; he had come looking for Kenny, and he hadn’t delivered anything but a choppy feeling in his gut and a dry mouth. “I’m sure he’ll give it to me when he gets back.”

Karen doesn’t even bother to lock the door, just tugs it shut and jumps off the measly top step into the undisturbed white snow. Eric looks at her, horrified for a moment for her slight body as she lands, before he takes a running leap into the snow himself. It feels good under his boots, a familiar slushy crunch.

He finds himself in step with Karen down the McCormicks’ driveway. “Where are  _ you _ going?”

“Wherever I want, Cartman,” she says, hesitating once they reach his mom’s car. Cartman unlocks the door, swinging it open and tossing his keys inside, but he doesn’t step inside. They stand, staring at one another. “When Kenny gets back I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”

“Don’t bother,” he replies, sliding in and slamming the door behind him. From the side mirror, he makes sure Karen is past the train tracks before he drives off.

On Sunday, Eric is almost in the driveway by the time he sees that the snow on Kenny’s car hasn’t been disturbed. He makes a three-point turn and heads home.

“I’m just saying,” Stan says a week later, beating a drum solo on his knees in the North Park Bowling Alley and Arcade as Kyle adjusts the velcro on his bowling shoes. “I’m  _ just _ saying, on no planet would Eminem beat Weird Al in a rap battle. You can disagree with me if you want, Kyle, but it’s the truth.”

For the millionth time since they arrived, Eric rolls his eyes; wrong time to come back from the bathroom. If they aren’t being lovingly codependent towards one another, Stan and Kyle are usually engaged in one of these nonsense arguments.

Eric slides into a chair beside Butters, who is busy keying in their names on the dated machine. He’s honestly surprised Stan and Kyle invited him out at all; usually they’re content to blow him off unless they’re inquiring about Kenny’s whereabouts, and since he still hadn’t returned from his supposed bender to end all benders, the dynamic duo had all but been avoiding Eric aside from lingering angry looks and the occasional regretful sigh.

Eric’s trying to make the most of it, because he genuinely likes bowling, though he doesn’t usually come out to do it. There’s something about sending those pins at the end of the lane cracking together that’s therapeutic. Back in sixth grade, almost everyone in their class had hosted a birthday party here, and Eric had gotten quite good at bowling because of it. He and Kenny would claim a lane of their own and spend hours trying to top one another’s scores, sending ball after ball tumbling down the— _ fuck _ , when had he started thinking about Kenny again?

Eric tries to tune back into the conversation at his side, shaking the orange-colored fuzz from his brain. “I’m not talking about a  _ rap _ battle, Stanley,” Kyle says grumpily. It’s been his turn since before Eric went to piss, but he seems to have forgotten about the game completely, instead turning to lean against the high-top table where Stan’s nachos are getting cold, his hands braced on Stan’s leg as they bicker lightheartedly. “I’m talking about a fight-fight. Like, with swords.”

“Still, dude. Eminem’s a pussy.” Stan grins. “Weird Al has that Jewish rage, right?”

Kyle furrows his brow. “Is Weird Al actually Jewish?”

“Isn’t he?”

“I’m pretty sure,” Butters chimes in.

“Jesus, Mary, and fucking Joseph,” Eric growls, snapping his fingers in front of Kyle’s face. “Are you going to fucking  _ go _ ?”

Stan and Butters both snap their eyes to Kyle. His gaze is red-hot immediately, fixated on Eric’s fingers. The blush starts across his nose and cheeks, a sure sign of the storm brewing beneath his skin. Talk about Jewish rage.

“What was that, fatass?” 

It’s an olive branch of sorts, an invitation for Eric to shut up and go back to ignoring everything aside from the game, but they both know he’s not really one for backing down from a challenge like that. Plus, it’s Kyle’s fault anyway for holding up the game with his bullshit conversation.

“I’m sorry, Kyle,” Eric says, batting his eyelashes and straightening his back. “What I said was:  _ are you going to keep wasting everyone’s goddamn time, or are you going to take your turn? _ ”

Stan tests the waters of placation by pressing a few of his fingers to Kyle’s clenched ones on his leg, but Kyle gives him a hot look and snatches his own hand away. 

“What’s your goddamn problem, huh?” Kyle asks, stepping closer to Eric. Usually Kyle is taller than him, but from the high-top chair, Eric towers over his small angry form, and it’s not very intimidating. “Do you not know how to have any fucking fun?”

“Now, fellas…”

Eric frowns. “Bowling is fun, Kyle. Bowling with  _ you two _ and fucking  _ Butters _ , though? It’s a goddamn nightmare. You and Stan spend the whole time flirting, and Butters has to use the fucking bumpers!”

“And spending time with  _ you  _ is such a wet dream, obviously. I might need to be pinched,” Kyle deadpans, eyes narrow. “I try to avoid being near you if possible, just because of shit like this. You can’t be normal, Cartman! You can’t sit around and just have a normal conversation with your friends, and I hate it!”

“Why did you bother inviting me then?!”

“Because of Kenny!”

Eric slams his fist on the table. Stan’s cold nachos bounce in their plastic container, and a few elderly patrons turn to stare. “What the fuck does that asshole have to do with anything?!”

“Oh boy,” Stan mumbles into his hand. “Here we go.”

Kyle laughs angrily. That’s one of the things Eric can really appreciate about Kyle—when he’s angry, he’s  _ pissed _ , and even his laughter sounds like he’s on the edge of a homicide. If Kyle could only let loose sometimes, he and Eric could really get into a lot of bad shit. 

“You’re joking, right? You’re actually joking! The only reason we ever invite you anywhere is Kenny, because he’s the only one who can keep you fucking reigned in long enough to be tolerable! If Kenny was in town right now, do you think any of us at this table would give two shits about what you’re doing on a Friday night?” Butters starts to interject, eyebrows raised nervously, but Kyle barrels right ahead. “No! We would have just invited Kenny! Just face the facts, Cartman! Nobody in this entire goddamn town can stand you except for him, and you scared him off!”

Eric grits his teeth. “I don’t need your  _ pity _ ,” he spits, rising from his chair and squaring up to Kyle. Stan stands too, like he’s expecting them to fight. “And I definitely don’t fucking need Kenny’s! Don’t invite me on your gay little family outings anymore, Kyle! I’ll be sooooo goddamn upset. I’ll be cutting myself into my diary about it later!”

“Fuck you,” Kyle says. “You’re the most aggravating piece of shit in the whole of Park County. Nobody would think twice about dropping you if it wasn’t for Kenny.”

For a moment, it seems like the entire bowling alley is silent. In Eric’s peripherals, pins fall and balls slide across the slippery hardwood floor, but there’s nothing beyond the rushing in his ears. It would be easy to throw a punch, to break Kyle’s nose or his stupid glasses, but Eric doesn’t. Instead, he grabs his car keys and his sneakers off the table. “I don’t have to take this shit from you just because your little  _ pet project _ went missing,” he snarls. “Screw this shit, I’m going home.”

“Wait,” Butters cries, reaching for Eric’s arm as he passes. “You’re my ride, Eric!”

“Get a ride with your real friends, asshole!” He slams his rental shoes on the counter and barely feels the snowy breeze as he leaves the bowling alley’s door swinging.

He’s running on autopilot until he’s pulled into the parking lot of the 7-11 outside of South Park, mind playing on a loop of  _ fuck Kyle fuck Kyle fuck Kyle fuck Kyle _ . Eric smacks his fist on the steering wheel once he’s parked, then on the side of the door. The last time they all hung out without Kenny, things had been fine, hadn’t they? Why does it have to be  _ Eric’s _ fault when Kenny disappears? Why does Kyle think he even gives a shit whether anyone wants to hang out with him, anyway?! Eric racks his brain for a good solid few minutes, trying to think of the last time, and then eventually any time at all without Kenny that had ended well. It had to have been right after Kenny stopped coming to school, because Kyle had resented Kenny more than he hated Eric at the time. The more he thought about it, though, most outings around that time had ended with a screaming match and a temporary ban from whatever establishment they visited. At Stan’s sixteenth birthday party, Eric had gotten into an argument with Wendy and ended up kicked out, throwing rocks at ducks by Stark’s Pond until Kenny sought him out and offered him some weed. Kyle had made an effort to avoid him at school for a long time after that. At Token’s summer blowout last year before he went off to some boarding school for geniuses, Eric had been so bored rubbing elbows with Park County sluts and white trash without Kenny there he’d simply driven to Kenny’s house and taken him out for a slushie run at the very 7-11 he was parked outside. On Eric’s birthday, it had been Kenny and Butters who made him a cake, who cajoled Eric’s classmates into coming to his house.

_ Oh god, _ Eric thinks in a moment of clarity.  _ Oh god. Oh  _ fuck.  _ Kyle’s not lying. _

Eric doesn’t realize he’s crying until a fat teardrop lands on his hand clasped around the wheel. He scrubs at his eyes, but that only makes it worse, and for a moment he’s pathetic, and allows himself to be. He hates the way he looks when he cries, hates the wet choking noises he makes, hates the itching behind his eyes when he’s finished, but he doesn’t stop, because he can’t. Kyle’s right. Kenny’s all he’s got, really, and he’s fucking gone, and feels like it’s all Eric’s fault.

Eric sucks it up enough to drive home, shoving his outburst back down into wherever his emotions go when he represses them. He brushes his mother’s attempts at conversation off and climbs into bed still fully clothed, holding onto Clyde Frog for the first time in a long time. He doesn’t think about Kenny. He doesn’t think about anything. He just sleeps, and he dreams of nothing but an endless warm void.

* * *

  
  


**Wednesday, March 16**

> 10:27PM  **Broflovski: Thanks for hanging out today.**
> 
> 10:40PM  **Broflovski: Even if it was weird, it was really good to see you.**

> 10:35PM **Marshwalker: [** [ **picture message — tap to view** ](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/64/36/d76436cc6c4ca5d8ea572ae88b7a1cfd.jpg) **]**

**Thursday, March 17**

> 7:29AM  **Broflovski: Do you know how to take snow tires off?**
> 
> 7:35AM  **Broflovski: Nevermind, my dad gave up.**

> 8:41AM  **Butters: what do you want for your birthday?**

> 9:28AM  **Craig Fucker: hey**
> 
> 9:30AM  **Craig Fucker: u straight to pick up later**
> 
> 3:32PM  **Craig Fucker: just lmk**

> 5:16PM  **E Cartman: Hi**
> 
> 5:43PM  **E Cartman: Fuck you kenny I know youre awake**

**Saturday, March 19**

> 3:44PM  **Broflovski: Butters told me you went to see Cartman. Did something happen?**
> 
> 4:00PM  **Broflovski: If he said anything to you, you know I’m always here to talk about it.**
> 
> 4:02PM  **Broflovski: He just can’t help being an asshole, dude. I can’t see how you like him.**
> 
> 9:31PM  **Broflovski: I support your right to isolate, but don’t think you’re off thenhook**
> 
> 9:31PM **Broflovski: *The hook**

> 8:18PM  **Craig Fucker: yo**

**Sunday, March 20**

> 11:15PM  **Broflovski: Are you mad at us?**

**Tuesday, March 22**

> 3:26AM  **Marshwalker: Happy 19th Ken <3**

> 11:46AM **Broflovski: HBD! We left your presents with Karen today since you weren’t home. I hope you’re okay.**

> 1:21PM  **Butters: happy birthday, kenny! seems like last week we were celebrating nine! i hope you enjoy your very special day wherever you are**

> 4:30PM  **Craig Fucker: you me tweek birthday pizza and some grass y/n**

* * *

Kenny wakes up in his bed, parka crumpled beneath his shoulders as he struggles into consciousness. Just a second ago, he had been with Cartman on the roof, and everything had been  _ so much _ , and then…  He stares up at the ceiling for a long time, bleary as he recounts the events of his death.  _ Fuck, _ he thinks.  _ Mother of fuck.  _ Absently, he brings his fingers to his eye and pushes at the skin there, waiting for the blossom of pain that never comes.  _ Fuuuuuuuuuck!  _ Not a dream.

He wakes up his chilly limbs slowly and dresses himself against the snowy breeze from his window, and he smokes two cigarettes staring out at his busted up shed and the thick forest beyond. Before he can even start to properly reorient himself, though, Karen bursts through the cracked door and throws herself onto him. 

“When did you come back?” she giggles into his arm. Kenny grins.

She gets lonely when he’s gone, and he knows it, because it’s the only time she transforms into his baby sister again, swaddled in blankets and as angelic as the day Kenny saw her for the first time. He pets her soft hair and takes in the feeling. For some reason, hugging Karen fresh off the respawn makes his stomach prickle with a childish kind of happiness; even if he can’t feel it when he’s gone, he misses her when he gets back. This time, thankfully, neither McCormick child cries.

“This morning,” Kenny lies. “After you left for school.”

“It’s Saturday,” she replies, muffled by his chest. “Saturday morning.”

“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” Kenny moans into her hair. “Really? What’s the date, even?”

Karen doesn’t  _ really _ understand where Kenny goes, even now, but she knows it’s a necessary part of his life. When she was still in elementary school and Kenny in junior high, Kenny had cut back on dying recklessly for her sake, but with that came a compromise—the longer he went between deaths, the longer it would take for him to come back. He’d been gone a month once, and when he’d returned Karen had been half-starved and battered, sobbing and beating at him with her tiny fists. 

(After Mysterion had finished whooping his father’s ass, Kenny had taken the scrawny form of his sister into his room and opened his wallet, handing her his debit card—their holy grail—with a solemn expression. He had clasped her tiny hands in his as she cried. He pressed the card into her open palm and closed her delicate fingers around it, making her promise to use it next time he left; it was all for her, anyway. Karen had cried harder, and he pulled her into arms while she squirmed and fussed, still angry with him. Kenny had cried too, snotty and desperate.)

Karen looks healthy this time, though, and her hair looks clean. If Kenny cared to, he’d probably check his wallet and find the card missing. Thank god she’s smart. “It’s April now,” she sighs. “You missed your birthday.”

“Damn.” He’s nineteen now. He missed his birthday. “Holy shit.”

“Happy late birthday,” she says. “Stan and Kyle dropped off a few presents for you, and I got you one, too.”

“Whaaaaat?” Kenny grins and licks his thumb, sticking it to Karen’s forehead. Karen shrieks and breaks out of his embrace, and for a while they’re young children again, Kenny spitting into his hand and chasing Karen around his room, vaulting over the mattress when she tries to strafe. Eventually they’re both panting and sweaty, legs draped over the side of Kenny’s bed as their chests heave. Once he catches his breath, Kenny leans out the window and stretches, willing the early spring breeze of a half-thawed South Park to cool the sweat on his skin.

“Do you want your presents, though?” Karen asks, and who could say no to that?

From a bag left by Stan, Karen produces a few new CDs for his truck: Cyndi Lauper and Sum 41 and some metal band with an indecipherable logo. Kyle’s gift, bound meticulously in two layers of leftover wrapping paper from his own birthday, is a few pairs of socks and a pack of charcoal pencils, neatly tied together with a length of twine. From Butters comes a pair of purple gloves and some pipe cleaners for his bowls. He’s surprised to find there’s one from Wendy, too, a lava lamp that Kenny had been mesmerized by (stoned of course) the last time they’d all gone to the mall together.

“Isn’t it neat?” Karen asks when she catches him grinning down at the thing. “I told her you would really like it.”

Kenny shakes his head and smiles. “Pretty neat.”

“Now mine!” From behind her back, she produces a bulging shoebox, and she can’t stop herself from opening it for him. Kenny’s quiet for a long time. Karen looks between him and the contents nervously, the proud smile on her face dropping several notches of intensity as he processes. “You don’t like them?”

A pair of new boots stare up at Kenny from the box, so close to his face that he can see the gentle leather ridges and smell that chemical new shoe odor. They’re nice, and they look expensive, and so Kenny feels guilty just looking at them.

“Where did you get the money?” He presses. God forbid Karen get into kleptomania, god forbid she do something stupid for Kenny’s sake, he won’t ever forgive himself—

“You hate them, oh man.”

“No, I—” Kenny reaches out and takes them, finally, sliding his fingertips over the rubber soles and tracing the shoelaces. “I just wanted to know. I love them, dude. Pass me some socks.”

Karen sets the box beside him on his bed and does as she’s asked. “I did a lot of laundry and house cleaning while you were working,” she explains, rummaging through his drawers. “And I went to Stan’s uncle Jimbo’s house last summer and made a hundred bucks cleaning his gutters out, I’ve been saving it since then.” She shrugs.

Kenny catches the socks she lobs at his head, sticking out his tongue to deflect from the pride washing over him. When he puts the shoes on, he stands, tests the way they feel, and Karen watches him with the eyes of a trained professional, gauging his reaction. He catches her eye and grins; they’re a little too big, and they’re bound to chafe the backs of his ankles for two weeks, but they’re non-slip and they’re warm and he loves them. He can just wear thick socks for a while.

Kenny rubs his eyes and takes Karen into his arms again, and maybe he cries again, just a little.

After years and years of reincarnation, the worst part about dying isn’t the pain anymore. It isn’t the wordless way Kenny slips into the inky half-consciousness beyond life, nor the wait, nor the countless brushes he has with religious constructs of afterlives both good and bad. Not even the lack of concrete memory of his death fazes him anymore. By far, the worst part about dying is picking up the pieces, responding to week-old texts and placating his friends. It’s the subtle regression of everyone around him, like he’s predictable in his disappearances, like flaking is just  _ something Kenny does _ . He sighs, scrubbing cold water from his hair with a towel, and flips his phone open to reorient himself with the world. 

Karen flits around their empty home with renewed vigor, popping into the doorway every so often just to stare; Kenny’s used to it by now, and he waves at her with his sock-covered foot as he raises his phone to his ear.

The routine starts again—he calls Kyle, who answers on the second ring with background noise from hell. If Kenny listens closely, he can hear Ike and Sheila Broflovski having a heated conversation, but he doesn’t. Instead, he holds the phone to his ear and waits to hear Kyle’s voice.

“Kenny?!”

“Hey, man,” Kenny says, bashful all of a sudden. It’s been a while, and he’s rusty. Or something. “What’s, uh—hey!”

“Kenny,” Kyle repeats, but this time it’s softer. The background noise gives way to the sound of a door sliding and crunching snow as he presumably steps outside into his yard. “Jesus Christ, I’m glad you called me. Where have you been?”

Kenny sighs a laugh. “You know,” he says.

“I really don’t.”

“Around.”

“Are you, like… safe?” Kyle asks. Kenny doesn’t really understand it, but Kyle is the one who worries the most aggressively for him, probably even more than Karen.  Kenny has a running theory that even if someone doesn’t remember his deaths, they remain in the subconscious; when he thinks about it, Kenny regrets dying in front of his most neurotic friend so much as a child. 

“I’m at home right now, dude,” he says, suddenly sitting up and slipping on his new boots. He hadn’t realized it earlier, but he misses Kyle pretty badly, and he still owes him an explanation for the supposedly crazy things he’d said about—well. “You want to hang?”

Kyle agrees. Kenny hangs up, not wasting his minutes, and kisses Karen’s forehead as the sun dips in the sky, pregnant with the night looming on the horizon. He drives the short distance to Kyle’s house. Kyle’s already sitting on his front stoop, knee bouncing enthusiastically in the slush. 

Further down the street, past Stan’s house, Kenny’s stomach churns at the sight of—He doesn’t think about it, doesn’t have time to; Kyle pulls Kenny into a hug the second he’s out of the truck, wrapping his arms around Kenny’s neck with a surprising strength. Kenny lets him, even wraps his arms around Kyle’s waist and squeezes. 

“I missed you so much,” Kyle says from his neck, in a quiet and vulnerable voice that’s only meant for Kenny, only meant for the trundle bed and for Kyle’s hands warming his scalp. “I really did, dude. Fuck you.” Kyle always smells kind of fantastic, something lavender and Juicy Fruit scented and warm. Kenny closes his eyes and sighs, resting his chin in Kyle’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” Kenny acquiesces, stroking the curls at the back of Kyle’s head. “I missed you too.” They stand in silence for a while, saying nothing else but not breaking apart. Post-mortis is the only time Kenny will let Kyle really cling to him anymore, the only time Kyle seeks out a hug from him, but it’s nice to feel wanted, though, and to feel missed, so he doesn't protest.

“It’s not worth it to ask you where you went, right?” Kyle asks as they readjust themselves, sitting together on the stoop. He’s still clinging to Kenny’s arm, rubbing small circles into his inner elbow. 

Kenny shrugs.

“Did it have anything to do with Cartman?” As always, Kyle is straight to the point. “Butters told me that he might have hurt your feelings.”

“Um,” Kenny says. “Not really. I mean, kind of? It’s complicated.”

Kyle raises his eyebrow. “Are we talking Wendy and Stan complicated, or are we talking Butters complicated?”

He considers it, pursing his lips and tapping them with his finger. It kind of surprises Kenny how painful it is to talk about Cartman all of a sudden, especially because Kyle knows that there’s some undercurrent to everything he says now, a red string of faggotry that threatens to cut off the circulation of the finger it’s attached to. It washes over him in wave after shameful wave. 

Kenny shouldn’t have left the U-Store-It with Butters nestled inside, and he probably would have stayed were it not for the superhero costume and the threatening display he’d given. Cartman was too fresh on his mind at the time, too under his skin after the conversation he’d had with Kyle and the whooping hollering buzz of childish hopefulness thereafter. It was Kenny’s fault in part for expecting anything good from his infatuation—for thinking Cartman could handle even a small fragment of his feelings. He should have just lied about the boner thing. Another wave of shame. He had a  _ boner thing _ now; he had a  _ Cartman thing _ . 

“Your silence speaks volumes,” Kyle says flatly.

Kenny laughs. “I’m sorry, it’s just—“ he shakes his head. “You won’t believe me, man. And you can’t tell anyone.”

“Try me,” Kyle challenges, pinkie extended.

Kenny, to his surprise, takes it. He meanders through the origins of his rage, through prom and that night with his father, and works his way around his death via awkward boner. The more he sets the scene for Kyle, the more he wishes that the white lie was reality. He’d give a million bucks to have  _ just  _ gotten embarrassed and run off, avoiding everyone in his mortification at being mockingly come onto by Cartman and liking it rather than plummeting off the South Park Mall rooftop. Kyle’s eyebrows dance as Kenny progresses through his story, but by the end they match his mouth, pressed into parallel lines.

“Wow,” he says finally. “Just…”

“What?!”

Kyle pushes his glasses to his forehead and pinches his nose. “You really could get a boner for Cartman?!”

Kenny smacks his arm. “It was a loaded circumstance, dude, be fucking sensitive!”

“Ow, I know, I know! It’s just—I can’t get my head around it! Cartman.  _ Eric Cartman _ .” He shakes his head and rubs his arm. “Only you, Kenneth.”

They sit in silence for a while, because Kenny doesn’t know what to say. Absently, he lights a cigarette, not worrying about Sheila inside with her cloying concerns about secondhand smoke and her poor baby. 

Kyle steals a drag before he speaks, talking on the exhale. “So, that shit he said—do you think it’s true?  _ Are _ you obsessed with him?”

Kenny scrubs the back of his hand across his face and ashes the cigarette aggressively. The cherry flicks and fizzles into the wet grass and he passes the cigarette to Kyle on instinct; party foul, pass the smoke to your right. “That’s a loaded question,” he says, relighting Kyle’s cigarette and retrieving another from his pack. “I mean, are you obsessed with Stan, or with basketball? Is infatuation obsession? If they’re different, when does it become one or the other?”

“God,” Kyle complains. “Okay, King Lear. I was just asking a question. Is that a yes?”

“Probably.”

“Why?”

“I dunno, dude! We used to hang out all the time, and I’d go to his house all the time! We had friendship necklaces, dude.” Kenny sighs. “I went to his house way more than I went to yours of Stan’s when shit went down, and don’t ask me why, ‘cuz I really couldn’t tell you.”

“So…” Kyle adjusts his glasses again. “What, you just expect me to believe the fatass just cleaned you up when you were hurt and made you a pallet on the floor?”

“Actually, Butters usually cleaned me up before I went to Cartman’s,” Kenny says, shrugging. “But I never stayed on the floor, dude. I always crawled into bed with him. We cuddled.”

Kyle eyes Kenny with confusion. “Oh….. _ kay _ ,” he eventually manages. “You and Cartman. You cuddling with  _ Cartman _ .”

“I guess when—when you and Stan stopped talking to me was when I really started to notice how much he gave a shit, even if he is a huge fucking douchebag. He’s really obvious sometimes, when I can get a read on him, and he’s really nice in private.”

The fight between their friend group had been nasty, a raw open wound that festered and went gangrenous over the rest of the school year and the summer that followed. 

Had it only been two years since then? Kenny had been at his most self destructive, and he’d crawled into Cartman’s window reeking of chemicals of every color and effect, covered in hickeys with his belt undone; Cartman had, to his credit, taken it as closely in stride as he could, but the overarching waves of jealousy and resentment had curled off his warm back in waves. 

Kenny tells Kyle as much, and Kyle throws his head back in a laugh. “What a mental image,” he laughs, half hysterical. “Cartman getting possessive over you of all people, I mean.”

“How’s it funny? I thought it was sweet, man.”

Kyle flusters. “Well, it’s just—y’know! You’re… you  _ know _ what I mean, Ken.”

Kenny grits his teeth. “No, I really don’t. Why don️'t you say it out loud and maybe it’ll clear things up?”

“It’s not like he couldn’t have asked, that’s all.” 

Kenny stands to leave, flicking his cigarette butt into the snow, where it sizzles. It takes all of Kenny’s willpower not to deck Kyle in the nose right on his lawn. The implication goes without saying—Cartman feeling entitled to Kenny’s attention is funny because Kenny is a slut who will give his attention to anyone that asked, as long as they’d let him hit it. 

Kyle follows, clinging to his hand. “No—Ken, wait! You know that isn’t how I meant it.”

“How  _ did _ you mean it?” He doesn’t look at Kyle, hand not being held stuffed into his pocket and clenched into a fist.

“Like, because you obviously have a thing for him. You would’ve done it because you  _ like _ like him!”

“Jesus Christ.” Kenny rolls his eyes and sits back down, dragging Kyle with him. “We are not talking about this like a couple of sixth graders right now. Tell me I didn’t hear this.” He grins despite himself; this whole conversation—this whole _ situation _ —is sixth grade bullshit. 

Kyle mercifully grins back, and the tension that had been clinging to Kenny’s cigarette smoke dissipates. “No, we’re not. But can I plead my case about why Cartman is the worst thing for you right now?”

Kenny barks a hard laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Give me your top ten reasons why we wouldn’t work.”

"Okay," Kyle says, face very serious out of nowhere. "Number ten: he's a total spoiled brat."

"Right," Kenny replies. "Only if you let him have that power over you, though."

Kyle sighs. "He obviously has it over you, Ken! He's annoying to the point you'll do anything to give him what he wants! There you go, number nine: he's annoying!" 

Kenny rattles his pack of cigarettes in his hand, and since they sound a little fuller than half-empty, he lights another. "He's not annoying when you're alone with him."

Kyle throws up his hands. "Oh, when you're alone with him," he cries. "I've always thought our conversations would be ten times better if I didn't have any witnesses around."

"I'm just saying," Kenny shrugs. "We talk about everything. He's a really smart person, and he'd probably be a good debate partner for you if you'd give him a chance. " 

He thinks about the time he and Cartman spent a rainy summer afternoon arguing about whether beer--beer!--was serving to oppress or liberate the disillusioned working class. By the time they'd come to the conclusion that there was no merit to having the argument while they were underage, it had been long past dark, and Cartman had ordered them a pizza for dinner. If he was that fun to Kenny, who didn't give a damn for politics or arguing for the sake of it, then Kyle would be enthralled.

"Hard pass," Kyle disregards, and it comes as kind of a relief. "Number eight: he's serially manipulative. Look at Butters, totally pushed around by him all the time!"

Kenny sighs. "Butters is more complicated than you think, too. You think about stuff way too black and white." 

It was true that Cartman certainly hadn't helped Butters' cause, but he had been severely fucked up long before Cartman entered his life. He'd been a timid people-pleaser from the time he could speak, probably. And with what limited information he'd ever given Kenny, he could tell Butters was definitely keeping a lot of the worst stuff under wraps from everyone. 

It came as no surprise to Kenny that Kyle hadn't thought much about what Butters' early childhood had been like, though. Kyle had no reason to examine anyone else's childhood because his was relatively stable, and even when his parents had divorced shortly after their schism, life had only become better for him. It was more than anyone else he was friends with could say about their home lives, and because of this, Kyle was pretty insensitive to issues of the family. Kenny tried not to come to Kyle for advice on it after Kyle had suggested he 'talk it out' with his dad and ended up halfway up Cartman's staircase, hacking up his own blood.

He told Kyle as much, and Kyle sighed. "Okay, fine," he admitted defeat. "I don't know Butters like that, but he's still manipulative, and my point still stands."

"I can't, and it does," Kenny agreed.

"So you don't care?"

He shakes his head. "I do, dude, don't get me wrong. But honestly, has Cartman ever manipulated me that you know of?"

Kyle thinks about it for a while, thumb to his chin. "What about that shit with Michael Jackson? Making you pretend to be a diddler's kid is pretty fucked up."

"Come on," Kenny laughs. "I wanted that kid out of there more than anyone else, dude. That wasn't manipulation."

"God, okay!" Kyle dips back into his memory. "How about... well, I..."

Kenny grins. "Exactly." 

"But you always go along with him, so it isn’t even fair to argue whether he’s manipulating you! Number seven," Kyle sidesteps, cheeks pink. Kenny's almost impressed; nobody has ever fought so hard to dissuade Kenny of anything, let alone Cartman. "He killed Scott Tenorman's parents! And cooked them into chili!"

"If I recall correctly, Scott Tenorman's parents had it coming, dude. And anyway, he had them killed. There's a difference."

"Do you hear yourself right now, Kenny?!" Kyle takes a cigarette from him. Kenny ashes his own. "You're talking like a crazy person." Kyle puts a hand up to his forehead as if to take his temperature, and Kenny laughs as he bats it away.

"Maybe, but is that the worst thing Cartman's done to someone else? How about when he made Token and Butters join his stupid Christian rock band? How about when he summoned Cthulu to send us to the underworld, and then did it? How about when he tried to send you to an ICE camp when you were ten? How about when he drank my ashes, dude?"

"Drank your huh?" 

"Nevermind," Kenny says. "The point is, if the worst thing he's ever done is turn someone into chili, I'm fine with that. My parents let meth dealers live in our shed, Kyle. My morals are fucked. Number six?"

Kyle laughs, ashing his cigarette and smearing the ash on the concrete outside his house with the tip of his shoe. "The point  _ is _ , you just listed out a whole ton of fucked up shit he’s done! And besides, I thought you were mad at him!"

"I am," Kenny shrugs. "But I also like him, so you're not allowed to fuss at me about why he sucks unless you can back them broad ass claims up with evidence."

"Number six," Kyle caves, "Is that you could do so much better, dude."

Kenny really laughs then, clutching at his side with his free hand and doubling over his knees. Kyle looks at him like he's crazy.

"What?!" he says, smacking Kenny's arm back. "You could! There's a lot of guys who would go with you, I bet!"

"Dude. I know there's a lotta guys who would go with me. There's a lotta guys who  _ have _ gone with me." Kyle wrinkles his nose. "That's why I have a reputation. But I don't like 'em, and I don't wanna fuck 'em, so I don't."

"You just like Cartman, and you just wanna fuck Cartman," Kyle echoes, tone only slightly mocking. 

Kenny shakes his head, but his ears go pink; he’s neer really thought about going  _ that far  _ with Cartman. "Something like that. You're over halfway there now, man."

Kyle takes a deep breath, finishing his cigarette and bringing his fingers up to blow his last lungful between them. Together they watch the smoke dissipate, and Kenny readjusts his legs on the stoop as he waits for Kyle's next argument.

"Reason number five is that he's fat. That alone."

Kenny grins. "I like fat guys, dude. And it's not just Cartman, either, so don't even start." Kyle, who had opened his mouth to rebut, snaps his jaw closed. "I'm seriously into fat dudes. You should see the magazines I have at my place. Burly fat guys with lots of hair, that's my favorite. And if you don't think Cartman's gonna turn into a total looker by the time y'all graduate, you're trippin'." He licks his lips just thinking about it. "God help me if he grows a beard."

Kyle fakes a gag. "That was more disgusting than I thought, and way more informative than I ever needed it to be. Thanks, Ken, for making me think about seeing Cartman after college and seeing him naked."

"You wouldn't like Stan if he got fat? You'd just stop talking to him, stop putting your dick in that?"

Kyle flushes right to his ears. "I don't put my dick inside-"

"Hypothetically," Kenny says, soothing his friend's burning cheeks with both hands, cigarette clasped between his teeth. "Doesn't have to be Stan. Any hottie with a body you like, girl or boy. If you like them, it doesn't matter if they're ninety pounds or two-hundred ninety, right?"

"I guess, but-"

"But?"

"But Cartman's never not gonna be fat."

"I know, dude," Kenny stresses. "I like it. I’ve cuddled it, remember? He's warm."

Kyle gags dramatically again. "Number four is that your friends hate him." When Kenny raises his eyebrow, Kyle crosses his arms. "Me and Stan, I mean. We hate him. Actually, everyone hates him! Every single person besides you can't stand him."

"So it's better... for me to pursue him now?" Kenny asks slowly, trying to follow the logic. "Because... I have no competition?"

"Ugh!" Kyle cries, standing up and giving himself a moment to pace around Kenny's car. "I can't stand you! You're twisting my words, dammit! Number three is that he's super insensitive to your needs! He could give you all the food you need, all the supplies to get Karen through class without worrying, and he doesn't, because he likes you being poorer than him!"

Kenny doesn't mention that he likes Cartman more than anyone else  _ because _ he doesn't give into the temptation of charity. He likes that Cartman doesn't see his poverty as anything more than the hand Kenny was dealt, and doesn't try to interfere with the way Kenny's playing beyond sliding an ace into his lap under the table on occasion. Kyle and Wendy and Butters try too hard, always get caught cheating by the dealer, but Cartman has a way of making sure Kenny knows he knows what Kenny needs. "He doesn't like that I'm poor. He knows I don't like handouts." 

"Kenny, the things you need to live aren't handouts! There's a reason they're called necessities."

"You don't know what all I do or don't need to live," Kenny grumbles around the filter of his smoke, and it's truer than Kyle could understand. "And besides, he knows I'd rather work for it than just have it. You'd be surprised, but he spends all his money real wisely now."

"Number two is that he lets you do this shit, Ken."

"What shit?"

"This shit! He lets you feed into your own delusional thinking about what you do or don't need, lets you believe your quality of life is something to be okay with!"

It pinpoints a nerve Kyle probably doesn't intend to strike, but immediately Kenny is on his feet again too, towering over Kyle with his fists balled at his sides. "Kyle, you better watch your fuckin' mouth before you talk about what goes on under my goddamn roof."   


"That's part of it, Ken! This is what I'm talking about! That house isn't yours! It's a dilapidated shithole your mom and dad paid for when it was worth less than it is now, and now they go in and out and rot their teeth out while you and your kid sister dodge furniture!"

"Shut the fuck up!" Kenny cries, shoving Kyle away from him on instinct. "When's the last time you offered me a bed, if it's that bad? You don't give a shit, either, so stop trying to act like Cartman's the worst person in the world for minding his own goddamn business!"

Kyle doesn't take physical violence from Kenny personally anymore, just growls and shoves back. "He minds his own business," Kyle growls, "Because he thinks you're nothing but a waste of resources. He said it himself, and you can ask Butters if you don't believe me! He said as soon as all of us graduate, nobody's going to give a shit about Kenny McCormick, and that we should all stop wasting our time! If you don't wanna listen to the first nine reasons, that's fine, but listen fucking hard to number one!" 

Kyle's face is slowly turning beet red, and even Ike peeks out his drawn curtains to watch his brother explode. Kenny can't even be mad at the raise in pitch, though, because he  _ had _ pushed first. "Stay away from Eric Cartman and quit wasting your time, because he doesn't fucking love you! I'd be surprised if he even  _ likes _ you, Kenny! And I'm sorry if you're too sad and lost in your own self-righteous suffering to believe me, but you only care about him so much because he's the only person you know who will let you wallow in your own fucking misery!"

Kenny leaves after that, slamming the door to his truck and peeling out of Kyle's driveway. He flips Kyle off the whole way down the street, and he doesn't stop for Clyde's frantic arm waving further up main street. He smokes the rest of his Marlboros on the way to the 7-11, where he buys two more packs and a Sprite. He cracks one pack open immediately, sucking down cigarettes on his ride home. By the time he's pulled into his own driveway again, he's calmed down somewhat, but as he climbs out of the truck and hits the wet ground, he kicks at the slushy piles of snow until he's panting and sweating.

"So," Karen says, holding a wooden spoon in her hand as she slips outside. "I guess talking to Kyle wasn't fun," Kenny, damned and a little detached from reality, offers her a cigarette. She accepts it, but tucks it behind her ear, a present for Kenny later once he's forgotten. Together they sit on their front stairs, nothing more than crumbled cinderblocks holding up wet and half-rotting wood, Kenny saying nothing, Karen rubbing his arm affectionately.

"I didn't even get to talk about the girlfriend thing," he tells her, and she doesn't get it, but she nods anyway. "I wanted to tell someone, and I didn't even get a chance."

"Do you wanna tell me?" Karen asks.

Kenny shakes his head. "Do you think I make myself miserable?"

"Huh?"

"Do you think I'm friends with Cartman because he doesn't force me to change like Kyle?"

Karen furrows her brows. "What's Cartman got to do with you hanging out with Kyle? What are you talking about?"

Kenny shakes his head again, but this time he does it to clear out his brain, long strands of blonde whipping at his closed eyes. "I like Cartman," he says. "I have a crush on Cartman, and he knows, I think. Or at least..." he sighs. "He thinks I just wanna, like… do it? I don't know. He didn't take it how I thought, or I guess how I wanted him to, and I don't know how I'm gonna face him now."

Karen grabs his arm, pressing her face against his shoulder. "I think you should talk to him," she says. "He came to see you, when you were gone."

"What?"

"Yeah," she says, sitting up with a sudden seriousness. "He came by the day after you didn't come home, but when I told him you weren't home, he left. He came back the next day, though, and he poked around in your room a little. He seemed really nervous, or really embarrassed, but he wasn't mad." She shrugs. "After that he didn't come inside, but he parked out here and looked at your truck for at least a week after that."

Kenny takes this in, feeling a little shocked. Cartman had barely visited his house at all, let alone when he wasn't home. He'd never talked to Karen beyond a precursory hello or a sneer in her direction, especially when they were young, and so Kenny had stopped bringing him around. And now he was just supposed to believe Cartman came looking for him? That Cartman was  _ waiting  _ for him? Usually Kenny is the one doing the waiting, and yet...

A few hours later Kenny walks to Cartman’s house, unable to stand it anymore. Every bone screams at him to leave the second he hops the fence to Cartman’s backyard, but he waits out the anxiety in his gut before flicking rocks at the plastic siding by Cartman’s window. Five, then ten minutes pass, and Kenny has resigned himself to a lifetime of avoiding Cartman forever, but just as he’s starting to turn, Cartman opens his window and leans out.

“What the fuck do  _ you _ want?” He hisses down at Kenny. He’s wearing his silk pajamas, looking cute and ruddy as his wide eyes betray his annoyed tone.

Kenny grits his teeth. Fucking bastard, looking like that when Kenny’s mad. "Can you come down here? I wanna talk," he says nervously, hands stuffed in his pockets.

Cartman laughs. "Are you serious? What makes you think  _ I _ wanna talk?"

"I’m serious," Kenny replies, crunching towards Cartman in the snow. "Nothing’s funny, just come down here."

"It's hilarious, dude. Or it would be, if it wasn't so fucking stupid. You're acting like a chick."

"Fuck you," Kenny says, feeling defensive. "I'm not a chick."

"Might as well be. What's the point of leaving at all if you aren't gonna be over it when you get back?"

"You don't know why the fuck I leave, dude," Kenny barks.

Cartman laughs. "You got that shit right! Not even your sister does. But I know why you left this time," he says. "You ran off to Denver or wherever-the-fuck for a month just because  _ you _ came onto  _ me _ and didn’t like that I saw through your horndog bullshit! Don't take everything so goddamn seriously!"

Along with the red-hot rushes of anger that initially pool in his gut, a sense of dread settles alongside, rubbing angrily against his organs. Would every conversation with Cartman be like this now, with Cartman scratching at his raw wounds now that he finally had something to hold over Kenny's head? 

"You've spent this whole time twisting what happened into something that isn't your problem, haven't you?" Kenny grits his teeth. "I don't know if you have short term brain damage from being so far up your own ass, but you were the one who came onto me, you asshole."

" _ You _ had the boner," Cartman smirks, resting his chin on his hands in the windowsill.

"You think you're gonna pretend like you weren't skulkin' around my house and talkin' to my sister because you missed me? You just want this to be some huge fucking joke at my expense, but you obviously felt bad enough to sit outside my house and wait for me." Kenny huffs through his nose. 

Cartman looks around suddenly, face paling as if he wasn’t expecting Karen to talk to Kenny about what had happened, as if someone is going to find out he actually has feelings. Cartman’s upper body disappears from the window suddenly, and a few minutes pass before he slides the glass door to his backyard open, red parka done up over his pajamas.

“It doesn’t matter whether I did or I didn’t. I just don’t get why you ran off in the first place, so ex- _ cuse _ me if I went to your crack den to figure out whether you killed yourself over me rejecting your feelings.”

“You didn’t even reject them! You pushed me off and then started saying some jerkoff fantasy bullshit about how I was obsessed and you always knew, or some shit! Stop trying to have the high ground, you pathetic fuck!”

" _ I'm _ the pathetic fuck?" He asks instead, jabbing his finger into Kenny's shirt, right over where the cold metal of Kenny’s friendship necklace sits. "Fuck you, Kenny! I thought you'd want me to take care of your little  _ problem _ , since you've been going between chasing poon and making googoo eyes at me across my pillow for half our lives! Excuse me for trying to give you some goddamn release.”

Kenny grits his teeth, slapping Cartman's hand away. "Don't touch me, dude."

"You've never had a problem with it before," Cartman says smugly.

For the first time in probably his entire life, Kenny finds himself completely and totally fed the fuck up with his best friend Eric Cartman's prodding asinine bullshit. He walks away, brushes his shoulder past Cartman's hard as he does. It feels good, even with the uncomfortable amount of moisture in his eyes. He starts the long trek back to his house, opening the latch on Cartman’s gate.

"How was I supposed to know the biggest whore in Park County wasn't down for a good time?"

Cartman tries calling after him, but Kenny digs his fingernails into his palms as hard as he can, willing his tongue to turn to stone. 

It's a low blow from Cartman, farther below the belt than either of them have ever gone. Then again, his affections for Cartman had been one of those things Kenny never anticipated coming to light, and yet here he is. How far did he really know Cartman would go? It's only now that he thinks Cartman might have actually meant what he said for once. Maybe he's meant it the whole time, keeping Kenny around because he knew Kenny would give attention until he was rejected. Maybe he really thinks Kenny's a slut, and after the awkward hate-boner from Mysterion, maybe he always will.

Kenny spits and scrubs his sleeve across his face, willing the tears back and rummaging for his pack of smokes. Fucking fuck, he thinks, but he doesn't get too far before Cartman's heavy boots crunch through the snow and his fat hand grips Kenny's parka.  _ God damn it,  _ he thinks.  _ Let me have my goddamn dignity, let me cry in peace! _

Kenny yanks his arm away and shoves Cartman hard. "I'm not gonna ask, motherfucker. I'm telling you. If you touch me one more goddamn time, I'll lay your ass out right here, and I'll make sure you break something."

Cartman, for all his lower center of gravity, doesn't fall, but he stumbles, hands drawn to his chest in a mockery of that fateful night they spoke on the roof, the night Kenny died. Back then, Kenny's vision had been clouded by shame, but now he stares at Cartman in tandem with the white-hot anger thudding from behind his eyeballs, and he sees him clearly. 

He's been entitled to Kenny's feelings for as long as either of them can remember, and he's freaking out again. Kenny is changing the dynamic, not content to leave things as the status quo. 

_ Haha _ , Kenny thinks to himself for a moment.  _ Fuck you, Kyle. _

From where he stands, Kenny can almost feel the way Cartman's mind is whirring to catch up, to come up with ways to get Kenny back in his vice grip. It's only fair that they should both get to feel this wave of panic, even if Cartman's comeuppance is two weeks late. The song and dance is over; the fantasy Kenny hadn't known he was holding onto slips between his fingers like silk. 

Mysterion is proud, and he plays by the rules even at a disadvantage, but Kenny fights for his life like a mad dog.

"What do you want," he says when Cartman says nothing. "You want me to confess my fucking sins? Fine, I like you! I always have, and even though I wanna beat your fucking face in for being such a backwards little fuck right now, I still can’t!"

Cartman still says nothing. Kenny wouldn't let him speak if he had, but it pisses him off more that he doesn't. 

"You wanna pretend this shit never happened? Okay. It never happened. But if you think I'm gonna go right back to playing superhero dress-up and sleeping in your bed like a kid, ignoring that we had this conversation, then you're fucking retarded!"

"I didn't ask for anything!" Cartman cries. "It's not my fault you have some weird thing for me, so stop trying to beat me up for saying no!"

"I didn't ask you to come to my house, but you still did, right?" Kenny feels kind of crazy, spitting on the ground by Cartman's feet. Cartman looks like he's been cornered by a wild animal; he's not wrong to feel that way as Kenny stuffs his shaking hand back into his pocket. He jabs the other into Cartman's chest this time. "Inserted yourelf right back into my life after fucking off for a year, didn't you? And for what, dude? Nobody was making googoo eyes at shit when everyone thought I was a waste of goddamn time!"

"I-I was trying to make sure you weren't getting yourself killed!"

Kenny laughs, and it's more than hysterical, but he's feeling pretty hysterical himself. "Bullshit, dude, fucking bullshit! I don't need you to take care of me anymore! The only thing you care about now is my will to obey!"

"Yeah, right!"

"Okay," Kenny shouts. "If you wanna take care of me, do it! But if you think that means you had me right where you want me this whole time, you're dead wrong. Nobody else woulda have let you play with them for so long unless it's where I wanted to be!" Now's not the time to cry, but Kenny can't help it, so he does. It feels too much like a breakup, and Kenny didn't do breakups. He had been expecting the waterworks on the day Cartman left for college, for God's sake, not two months before graduation. 

"Why can’t you just be happy with things staying the way they are?" Cartman scoffs. "You're over here getting ready to beat my ass over a goddamn hypothetical crush! Are you gonna get a fucking boner then, too? Fuck you, Kenny! You're just as up your own ass as I am! You're even more up your ass!"

Kenny pushes Cartman again, suddenly madder than he thought he could be. Cartman's a bad fighter on a good day, but when he's caught off guard he's worse. He stumbles, and Kenny takes the opportunity to grab him by the collar.  _ We've gotta stop meeting like this _ , he might've said, but it's too depressing when it's Cartman and not his raccoon counterpart. "This isn't about a hard-on and you fucking know it, you fat son of a bitch!"

"Why are you so fucking mad, then?! Everyone knows I'm self-centered! Kyle, Stan, even goddamn Butters knows! My own mom knows!" Cartman doesn't hesitate before he punches Kenny in the stomach. Kenny coughs and bends forwards, sending their foreheads clashing together before they both fall back on their asses. The wet ground seeps through Kenny's jeans way too quickly, but Cartman's no better off. “Get off your fucking high-horse and face reality! You and me would never work because I’m way too selfish and you’re way too self destructive! Why did you come out here, unless you wanted to, since I suck so bad?!”

“Because I wanted to make it work,” Kenny says to the snow. “You and me.”

“There’s no you-and-me to make work! You’re so fucking delusional you dreamt up this whole decades-long one-sided relationship with me, and now you’re losing your shit on everyone because I don’t want it like you do! You’re writing your own fucking letdown playbook when you never even  _ asked _ if I felt the same way, and now you’re coming out here to try and pick a fight with me that wraps the story up all nice and neat! I don’t want to hear about making anything work, or playing into whoever’s hands, or whatever stupid shit you concocted to help yourself pine for the last ten years! I don’t want to fuck you, and I certainly don’t want to date you, and you always knew!”

"I'm over this," Kenny grunts. "Maybe I was wrong about you, but I know what the truth is."

"You're over it? Fine," Cartman says, clearly not fine with it. "So fucking leave! I'll have more money in my pocket and more brain cells than I know what to do with if you're not following me around! Maybe I can get a decent night’s fucking sleep!" His face is perplexing, something Kenny's only seen a handful of times, like when his cat died, or sometimes Kenny couldn't always make it up the stairs to his bedroom. He looks like he's in pain, screwed up and ugly and red. Kenny openly gawks at him, wants to reach out and touch his face almost, just to see if it's real.

He doesn't though, gripping the leg of his jeans with white knuckles to resist the temptation as he turns around. 

He doesn't go to Kyle’s, doesn't go to work or the 7-11, doesn't bother checking his cell phone. He walks home, tucks himself into bed, and he cries. It's embarrassing even while it's happening, ridiculously snotty and dramatic, kind of like the way Cartman makes him feel. He cries because he feels like he just lost his best friend  _ and _ the love of his life. He cries because he hasn’t really cried like this in years, not over something so meaningful and meaningless at the same time, something so innocent as getting turned down by a friend . 

Mostly, though, he cries because at the end of the day, Cartman is kind of right about him.

**Author's Note:**

> food for thought: recently, someone important to me told me that times in the past we thought were special are sometimes necessary to isolate and think fondly on while also realizing that one can never return to them.


End file.
